Untouchable
by LikeAnEcho
Summary: Élise Cross isn't like any other woman. Being born from a human mother from America and a mutant father from France,not only is she French-American but a mutant with the powers of phasing, invisibility,electricity and ability to render herself completely silent, Élise has become the perfect saboteur and spy. Two things the Autobots are in need of..more on the inside!
1. Rest of the summary

Élise Cross isn't like any other woman. Born from a human mother from America and a mutant father from France, not only is she French-American but mutant with the powers of phasing, invisibility, electricity and ability to render herself completely silent. Élise has become the perfect saboteur and spy. Two things the Autobots are in desperate need of with Jazz hardly hanging on and with no knowledge on the fate of their own spy. Luckily our favorite black man happens to be her uncle and he knows just how to get her to join them...all he has to do is find a 2005 vintage edition cadillac deville.


	2. Introduction

"Ah shit!"

"Kick his ass Élise!"

"Ow! Ow! Ow!"

"Say uncle!~"

"Don't give up you wimp!"

"She's gonna break your arm, idiot! Suck it up and say uncle!"

"I'd listen to her... say uncle!"

"Ahhh! My arm! Okay, okay I give!"

"That's not saying uncle~"

"Alright, alright! UNCLE! UNCLE! UNCLE!"

With a laugh she rolled off her opponent and stood. Élise was very beautiful, that was clear as day. Her skin was a smooth flawless golden caramel brown and her eyes were a pale blue-grey color outlined by eyeliner. Her hair was simply a thick bundle of beautiful light brown curls that spun down to her shoulders and framed her face perfectly. She stood taller than the average woman at 5'9'', was slender, had curves in all the right places, her lips were full and coated with lip gloss.

She brushed herself off and held out hand to the young teen still on the ground. He looked up at her with a pout, cradling his arm delicately but after a few moments he took her hand and got himself off the ground with her help. The boy was cute, lean, lank and had some muscle to him. His skin was pale and smooth, he had silky black hair that swished to the left and green eyes.

"Anyone tell you how much of a brute you can be?" he questioned quirking an eye brow.

"All the time _le_ _miel. _But you love me anyways. You all do." she added smiling at her group of friends that had circled the duo. "If that's what's getting you through the day then go ahead and think that." Sean mumbled under his breath. Élise had heard the young teen's mumbling and laughed, ruffling his hair much to his displeasure.

_"Another_ fight won again, _Liebling _well done." Garren smiled. She smiled back at the slightly older German man and nodded thankfully. Garren was a tall, handsome and muscular man with similar blue-grey eyes as Elise, smooth pale skin, neatly combed brown hair and a seemingly permanent smirk on his face.

"Are you honestly surprised? When hasn't Élise won a fight?" Ronnie laughed, tearing off a piece of a cereal bar and popping it into her mouth. Ronnie was very beautiful too. She hadn't stood as tall as Elise but she had been closer to the average height of 5'6'', she was thin and lithe, had flawless tan skin, rich brown wavy hair that rolled down to her back, small pink lips and hazel eyes outlined by eyeliner and mascara.

"She lost against me" Dean pipped up smiling wickedly. Dean was a handsome man as well and had a muscular build, smooth pale skin, messy dirty blonde hair, a light beard and the most beautiful crystal blue eyes anyone has ever seen.

"Oh what ever Dean, I so could have kicked your ass if you hadn't of cheated!"Élise dismissed laughing.

She had remembered the fight they had not too long ago and the only reason he had won was because he had pulled a cheap hair pulling move and thrown the assaulting girl off of him and had quickly gained the upper hand and won the fight. His blue eyes radiated amusement as he pretended to be hurt.

"Me? Cheating? Why I would never!" he said dramatically as he held a hand to his chest, "Just the thought of you accusing me of cheating is hurtful Élise!" Élise and the rest of the group rolled their eyes good-naturedly at the dramatic man in front of them but only Ronnie had spoken up.

"You're so dramatic Dean. Instead of prideing yourself with a cheating win, why don't you be a man and fight her again, but this time...don't be a bitch and pull her hair!"**  
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The other three friends snickered, with echos of 'dammmnnn' ringing around them. Dean narrowed his crystal eyes at the smirking tan woman in front of him and sniffed, "Fine." he turned to Élise expectantly, "Élise?".

The mixed woman shrugged indifferent, "Makes no difference to me if we fight or not _le __miel_. But if you're going to be pissy about this then fine, we'll fight later." Dean nodded satisfied and gave Ronnie a look before walking off.

"Why you insist on instigating problems with him escapes me_ honig _" Garren said rubbing the back of his neck with a small frown once Dean was out of ear shot. Ronnie mimicked the look and cross her arms, "I don't instigate problems with him...I point out the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts".

"And sometimes words hurt too _ le __miel."_ Élise countered gently.

"Ehh, they got a point Ron, there's only room in this group for one mean person...and that's Élise." Sean pointed at the shocked woman next to him with a smile, hoping to lighten the mood.

It did.

Garren, Sean and Ronnie all laughed at the shocked and offended look Élise had on her face."_Quoi?!_ I'm not mean!" she protested loudly.

"Yes, you are. Sometimes you forget to put a filter on that mouth of yours and either the meanest, rudest or the most perverted thing will slip out from between those lip gloss coated lips of yours." Garren smirked.

Élise flushed and pouted mumbling, "What the fuck ever dude" under her breath.

"See?! Right there! That was mean. You had no filter on at all. And that's rubbing off on you Ron. Gotta work on that_Liebling. _Especially when you're around Dean, you know he has a thing for you after all." Garren wiggled his eye brows suggestively as Sean did some wolf calls.

Ronnie blushed heavily," H-he d-does not! We're friends!" she protested but her friends didn't miss the flash of disappointment in her hazel eyes.

"You could be friends with benefits if you got it together." Élise teased.

"Shut up Élise!" she cried smacking her on the arm.

"Oh yeah, there's going to be more of that when you two hook up but he won't be hitting you on the arm and he won't be asking you to shut up. If anything he's going to be smacking that butt of yours and you're going to be screaming his name as he delivers the milk to the back door." Élise smiled with a perverted grin on her face.

"_Mein Gott_ Élise! Turn your filter back on!" Garren looked a bit disturbed and amused. Ronnie had turned completely beat red and hid her face behind her hands. But Sean just looked flat out disturbed.

"Oh gross, when you guys hook up can you not do it in the kitchen or in my bed please? And not do it when any of us are home? That'd be fantastic." Sean requested with a wince as he got a mental picture of his two friends hooking up and doing it in various places and positions while he was at the house.

Élise busted out laughing uncontrollably and needed to lean on Garren to keep herself standing. Her contagious laughter had gotten to Garren and soon the two were clinging to each other with tears rolling down their cheeks. The sight and their laughter quickly got to Ronnie and then she was laughing in a similar fashion.

Sean was the only one not laughing, he couldn't get the perverted images out of his head and groaned as he rubbed his face. "I'm going to the skate park" he mumbled to anyone bothering to listen to him and grabbed his skate board resting against the fence and left.

Only the sound of Élise's phone ringing was able to break the spell of their uncontrollable laughter. They all were left panting and she needed to take a few calming breaths before pulling her phone out of her pocket and answering.

_"Bonjour?" _she answered.

"_Bonjour!_ Would this happen to be my favorite niece Élise?" a familiar voice asked cheerfully.

"_Oncle_ _Epps_?" she asked surprised. She hadn't seen or heard from her uncle in a few years. The last she had heard of him was when he was in Qatar but something had happened and he had gotten put back in the states and then relocated again to some unnamed new place.

"_That's right, how ya doing baby girl?"_

_"How am I doing?Comment fais-je ? Vous ne devriez pas vous soucier de moi ! Vous devez être inquiétant sur vous-même ! Vous avez été déplacé deux fois! Comment allez-vous ?!_

_"Woah, Woah, Woah! English girl, English. I swear you're just as bad as Fig but he goes off into Spanish, not French."_ he laughed.

Élise couldn't help but smile as she calmed down. He was calm and laughing. She assumed it was okay to believe everything was just fine.

_"I'm going to guess that all of that was you basically asking if I was okay, right?"_

She chuckled breathlessly, _"Yes, Uncle Epps. I'm wondering if you were okay."_

_"Oh, Psshh! I'm fine girl! How about you?"_

_"I'm Just fine, Uncle"_ she smiled even though he couldn't see it.

_"Sooo, are you still looking for a job?"_

_"Uhh, Ouais?" _she hadn't gone job hunting in a while but she hadn't technically stopped either.

_"I'm taking that as a yes. Well stop because I can get you a job here, with me!"_

_" You'd get me a job in the military? What would I be doing?"_

_"Ahhh, this is the awkward part."_

_"Why?"_

_"We sort of need...a spy/ saboteur."_

_"No"_

_"Aw, come on Élise please! We really need you. Our saboteur is hardly hanging on by a thread and we don't know if their spy is dead or not"_

_"Their spy?"_

_"Our spy, I said our spy"_

Élise rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead with a sigh.

_"Oncle I really don't feel comfortable with this. I'm sorry but you're going to have to find someone else to do this."_

_"Ahhh, this is another awkward moment"_

Élise frowned and took a serious tone. What was he talking about? Surely he wouldn't have volunteered her for this before even asking her about this right?

_"What did you do Oncle Epps?"_

_"...I may or may not have already told them that you'd do it."_

_"Quoi?! Je vais vous botter êtes la cul!"_

_" Yeeeaahhh. I figured you'd say whatever you just said...I'm sorry sweetie"_

_"You're sorry?! Oh no you have no idea how sorry your going to be when I get my hands on you!"_

_"Ah ha! So you're agreeing to come! That's fantastic! Now listen, go to the air port in a hour and catch a flight to Baghdad and then when you land there you'll have to catch a private flight to Diego Garcia. See you soon honey, love you! Kiss kiss!"_

Élise stared at her phone in anger and disbelief after her uncle promptly hung up on her. How could he do that to her! Volunteering**her** powers. **With out her** **consent**.

"Élise?_ Schätzchen_ ?" Garren called softly. Élise slowly met Garren's concerned gaze and sighed heavily, she might as well get this over with and start packing, she had a flight to catch.

Hey, this is my first story and I'm hoping it won't be too terrible, sorry for any grammar or spelling errors if you find any. Thanks for the read!

Translations from Google translate

**le miel:** is french for _honey_

**Liebling:** is german for _darling_

**Honig:** is german for_ honey_

**Quoi:** is french for _what_

**Mein Gott:** is german for _my god_

**Bonjour:** is french for _hello_

**Oncle:** is french for _uncle_

**Comment fais-je ? Vous ne devriez pas vous soucier de moi ! Vous devez être inquiétant sur vous-même ! Vous avez été déplacé deux fois! Comment allez-vous ?!:**

is french for :_ How am I doing? You should not worry about me ! You should be worrying about yourself! You have been moved twice! How are you?!_

**Ouais:** is french for_ yeah_

**Quoi?! Je vais vous botter êtes la cul!: **is french for: _What?! I'm going to kick you're ass!_

**Schätzchen:** is german for _Baby_


	3. Family reunion

Epps sighed as he ended the call and rubbed his head slowly. He felt terrible for what he's done, he really did. He had no right to volunteer Élise to use her powers for the military. They were her powers, not his. Hopefully she would forgive him when she got here.

"Hey man, you okay?" a familiar voice asked.

Epps turned his head and flashed a strained smiled at his best friend William Lennox as he was climbing up the stairs of the catwalk and approached him.

"Yeah man, everything's fine. Just got off the phone with Élise." Lennox smiled but it faultered when it was returned half heartedly.

"Everything go over okay?" he asked concerned.

Epps sighed heavily and leaned against the railing and began to rub his head again,"Well I know she's coming but it went over as I thought it would. Badly. She was pissed. And I dont blame her, I had no right to do what I did."

Lennox frowned and patted his arm comfortingly, "Hey, you were only trying to help. To be honest I think you did the right thing. If you hadn't of already volunteered her to come and help then what would be the odds of her coming here on her own free will?" he questioned.

Epps scoffed,"Odds are that she wouldn't of come at all. So yeah, I guess you're right. But I've got to find out how to make it up to her. I haven't seen Élise in **years**, Lennox. I wouldn't be able to stand it if she spent her entire time here hating me."

Lennox nodded understandingly. If he were in Epps shoes right now he was sure he'd be feeling the same way.

"I'm sure she wouldn't hate you the entire time she's here, Epps. You're her uncle. You love her. She's you're neice. She loves you. You'll figure something out." Lennox promised.

Epps smiled greatfully at the tanned man and nodded. Lennox smiled happy to see his friend was relieved and convinced of the promise.

He patted Epps on the shoulder and led him down the stairs,"Now come on. Word around base is that the Twins and Sideswipe set up this huge prank in the training room and Ironhide is going to get it bad. I heard even Optimus is going to be there for when it all goes down. I don't know about you, but I want to see it!" Lennox laughed and hurried down the steps with his friend in tow.

"Élise Cross?" an unfamiliar voice called.

Élise turned around and seen two men dressed in pilot uniforms making their way through the sea of people and coming towards her. One was a middle aged man, mid 40's possibly; he had brown hair with flecks of grey mixed in, kind brown eyes and a warm smile on his face. The other man was a lot younger, early 20's most likely; he had black hair, fair skin, hazel eyes and was quit tall- a good head over the older man.

"Yes, that's me. I'm assuming you guys are with the military?" she asked hopefully.

The older man chuckled, "Well you know what they say when you assume something sweetheart. You make an ass out of you and me."

Élise felt her cheeks heat up a bit as she chuckled along with the man," Well I can assure you _monsieur_ that wasn't my intention."

The younger man smiled and waved it off, "Don't listen to Ol' Conner here. He's just messing. But yes, we're from the military. We'll be taking you to Diego Garcia. I am Esteban Ramírez." he introduced and held out his hand for a handshake.

Élise smiled and shook his hand,"It's nice to meet you Esteban". "It's nice to meet you as well, Élise." he smiled, flashing his pearly white teeth.

The older man stepped up and introduced himself as well, "And I'm Conner Barlow, It's a pleasure to meet you "

Élise shook his hand," Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you too." she paused "And thank you both for coming to get me, I'm sorry if I interrupted your day." she apologized genuinely.

For all she knew these men could of been taking a long deserved rest at the base and it was interrupted because they needed to go get some woman in Baghdad.

"Now, now none of that. We weren't doing anything anyways. Besides we already seen today's performance at the base." Esteban smiled sharing a knowing look with Conner before both of them began to laugh at the inside joke.

Élise was lost. There were performances at a military base?

Conner seen her lost expression and shook his head,"Don't worry about it honey, it's nothing. Just a bunch of grown men acting like teenagers and decided to do some pranking on another soldier and it turned out pretty messy. If we hurry maybe we can get you a glimpse of the aftermath."

He turned to his companion and smirked," Esteban, grab her stuff and lets go, double time!" Conner ordered before grabbing her wrist and took off at a brisk pace through the crowd of people.

"Sir yes sir!" he laughed and quickly gathered the suit cases and trotted after the older pilot and a dumbfounded young woman.

Élise couldn't believe her eyes. There had to be **gallons** of bright pink paint splattered all over the walls and floors of the room, along with tons of sparkling glitter. Soldiers who were in the room with her and the two pilots couldn't keep a grin off their faces as the scrubbed away the gallons paint and glitter. **  
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_"Oh mon dieu , ce qui est arrivé ici?" _she breathed.

Conner and Esteban couldn't help but laugh again.

Esteban patted her back comfortingly once he had collected himself, "I have no idea what you just said but I'll tell you that**this** is the result of some of our soldiers getting bored. It's best to just try and get along with everybody because you never know who are the **prankers** and who are the **best friends** of the **prankers.** You piss off the wrong people here and you'll end up being their next target darling and that's a promise. They won't care who you are, what rank you are or who you're related to you. will. get. pranked. End of story."

Élise winced and nodded. She'd be staying on everyone's good side if she had any say to it.

"Élise?" a familiar voice called out hopefully.

She turned and seen her Uncle Epps standing with another man a few feet away from them. Forgetting about her previous anger towards her Uncle and ignoring the other man; she she squealed out of excitement and ran, throwing herself at the darker man. He caught her and span her around a few times before setting her down and rocking her back and forth in a tight hug.

"I missed you, baby girl" he whispered into her hair.

"_ Me as manqué aussi_ _Oncle _Epps" she happily whispered back tears prickling at the corner of her eyes.

He huffed in an amused way, "Still can't understand you do that. But let me get a good look at you." he pulled away and held her at an arm's reach away. His face softened a great deal and a sad smile graced his lips as he took her in.

"Well look at you, you're all grown up now aren't you? Beautiful too."

Élise blushed and nodded," Thank you. I'd like to think that I am grown. It's something that tends to happen over time." she teased.

He chuckled and took in her sight once more, "It sure does, doesn't it" he murmured to himself.

"You gonna introduce me to you're niece Epps? Or am I going to have to do it myself?" Lennox asked in a teasing manner as he walked up to the two relatives. He was tanned from the sun, had a good build on him, no doubt from all the military training, brown eyes and dark brown hair. Only thing she found disappointing about him was the fact he had a wedding ring on. She inwardly sighed, all the good looking men she met were either taken, gay or friend-zoned.

"Oh, my bad. Lennox this is my niece Élise Cross. Élise, this is my best friend Captain William Lennox."

Élise smiled and shook Lennox's hand," It is a pleasure to meet you Captain. Glad to know there's someone looking after my uncle" she teased.

Lennox smiled,"Just Lennox is fine. And if I wasn't looking after him on the field or in the base, who else is going to be there to cover his ass?" he joked and laughing when Epps glared at him.

Élise laughed along with Lennox but stopped when the sentence registered in her mind. She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be kicking her uncle's ass! And if Lennox decided to get in the way...well it'll be fun wrestling him to the ground.

"Élise? You okay?" Lennox asked concerned, seeing her angry frown. She nodded and smirked as she narrowed her eyes at the frozen black man in front of her. He took one look at her and then Lennox before suddenly whipping around and hauling ass down the hall as if the devil himself were on his heels. Determined to not let the man get away she quickly took off too, leaving a stunned Lennox behind.

10 seconds had went by when Lennox and many of the other soldiers heard girly screams coming from one of the many halls in the base.

"Wow, pretty good time" the Captain complimented as if she were standing next to him.

The soldiers who didn't know what was going on, ventured off to find the source of the screams. When they did they were shocked at the sight, all they seen was this mysterious woman viciously beating the hell out of their favorite black man. They wanted to go stop her but at the rate Élise was going, they decided not to.

After a rather nasty crack from one of Epps' bones, Lennox decided that this would be a pretty good time to go get Ratchet.

Hey! Thanks for the read, and sorry for any grammar or spelling errors you found.

Google translations:

**monsieur** is french for: _Mister_

**Oh mon dieu , ce qui est arrivé ici? **is french for: _Oh my god, what happened here_

**Me as manqué aussi **is french for: _I missed you too_


	4. A talk with Optimus Prime

"Élise Cross, it is an honour to meet you. I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. I'd like to personally thank you for coming in our time of need. I know that this could not have been an easy decision on your part."

Élise smiled at the gigantic living mechanism crouched down close in front of her. She'd seen a lot of things in her life, but a living mechanism was a first. She guessed that Optimus had easily stood at or above 30 ft tall. His eyes could have matched Dean's in beauty but his had topped Dean's in the end, they glowed for crying out loud!

His voice was a deep but calming baritone and he held an air of nobility and authority around him. His paint job was flawlessly done; beautiful red and blue flames licked at his metal body and stood out even more because of the recent wax job he had been given.

" Trust me _monsieur_ Prime. The honour is all mine. You'd be correct in saying that this wasn't an easy decision. To be honest I didn't plan on coming, mainly because of my fear of exposing my powers so blatantly." Optimus nodded understandingly.

When his human friend, Epps had volunteered his 'niece' to come and use her powers for them he was a little skeptical. Surely it should of been a decision for the young one, not him. However, when he began talking about what she could do, he grew a bit excited and hopeful.

This little femme had been like their spy Mirage! She just had a few more abilities than he and from what Optimus understood, she would not be detected by any sort of technology when she went into 'infiltration mode'.

Mirage was an excellent spy, there was no doubt about it. Optimus has only met one other bot that could match his skill, and that was Jazz. He thought about how this had occasionally been a problem for Mirage and the Autobots during the war.

The Decepticons had technology that was specifically made to detect Mirage and this would limit the amount of information they got or it would prevent him from getting at all if he needed to make a hasty retreat.

Optimus had thrown his skepticism aside and gratefully agreed to allow his niece to come and help them. He did feel some guilt though, Epps had cautioned them that she may be wary about using her powers.

There may have been laws that legally protected her and other mutants from being captured for experimentation or torture, but there were still these 'mutant hunters' around. There were thousands of them and very hard to kill. They were everywhere, especially in places you wouldn't expect. They hid in broad daylight and in the cover of night. Location and time made no difference to them. If they were given the opportunity, they would take it.

He was told Élise personally knew that this was true. She had been at Times Square in New York on New Years Eve with some friends, doing the countdown with the crowd as they watched the giant ball drop.

As the timer struck zero and the celebration began, that when the attack had begun. She and her friends began to weave their way through the crowd and pulled off to the side to try and find their other friends. One of her friends had spotted the rest of their group and took the other to go get them, leaving Élise alone. That's when the hunter had stuck. The hunter had thrown a poison tipped knife and it had lodged its' self in her back.

The knife's poison had been made to neutralize her powers and act as a tranquilizer at the same time. She had immediately felt it's effects, not only had she had lost feeling all over her body and collapsed on the ground, she found she couldn't use her phasing powers to hide under the cement ground beneath her.

She was sure she had an angel watching over her at that moment. Before the hunter could do anymore damage, complete strangers that had witnessed what just happened, turned on her assailant and defended the girl as she laid motionless on the ground.

As the hunter was being taken care of, she remembered a few of her friends running to her and a couple of extra people had working together to pick her up, get her into the nearest restraunt and called an ambulance for help.

She remembered being lifted into the ambulance by the paramedics... getting lifted out before being brought into the hospital... going through a set of white doors... and being rushed down a white hall way.

She didn't remember much after that.

She learned that no matter who was around, where they were or what was going on-they would be after her if they ever caught wind about her location.

Optimus didn't know much about these 'mutant hunters' but as he was told her story, he knew there was no way he favored them. He had made a silent vow on his spark to protect this little femme. Not only because she would be coming out of hiding, she would be risking her life for using her powers for a bunch of military soldiers and Cybertronian aliens she didn't know.

And according to the term the humans used, 'he would be damned' if she was captured because of it.

Optimus had quickly spread the news to his men, and the were curious and a bit cautious to say nonetheless. The thought of an advanced human life form had confused them and set them a bit on edge.

They had pros and cons of this situation; Pros being that they needed another being like Mirage and Jazz, advanced humanoid or not.

They could finally get the information they desperately needed not only on the locations of the Decepticons but just on information in general; battle strategies, future attacks, energon locations, weapons, technology they had or were creating and she could sabotage their equipment and energon stores if given the opportunity.

The cons being that there was the thought that she was replacing Jazz and Mirage - which he had reassured he wasn't and would never even think about doing. She could give them false information, she could accidentally gather old or even faux information.

Optimus could understand his men's concerns but if he were to be completely honest, he didn't believe that the Decepticons would lay out faux information.

For what?

They knew Jazz was either dead or hardly hanging on and they knew Mirage was not here. They didn't have a bot with the proper skills necessary for infiltration.  
>Yes, Sideswipe had done some infiltration back on Cybertron but he wasn't known for stealth or patience, that's why Optimus had him as a front-liner. He also didn't believe she would give out false information. What would she gain from it?<p>

Nothing.

Only thing she would gain would be guilt from getting bots and humans killed.

He vented air in a sympathetic way, "Yes. You're uncle had informed me of that earlier. I must ask for your forgiveness, I have been selfish. Not only have I have taken you only out of your 'comfort zone' but out of hiding as well.

If this were not a dire situation, I would not have agreed for you to come. However, I do swear on my spark that I will protect you with my very life from these 'mutant hunters' that plague you and the rest of your kind."

Élise's eyes widened considerably.

He'd die for her? But why, he hardly knew her?

"Something that would surely be changed, if you'd allow me the chance to," he offered with a warm smile. Élise blushed when she realized she must have spoken the silent question.

She returned the smile and nodded," Very well then Optimus, you will be given the chance to get to know me if you wish."His blue optics seemed to glow brighter along with his smile," Thank you. I will be sure to not miss out on this opportunity." he promised.

"And I'll make sure to do the same for you. It's not an everyday thing where you get to meet a Cybertronian such as yourself, now is it?" she asked. Optimus chuckled and shook his head," No, I don't believe it is" he answered.

Élise suddenly tipped her head to the side as she recalled Optimus's words. "I don't think you're being very selfish." she stated.

He gave her a curious look and she continued," You're just trying to be a good leader and do what is right for your men. And if getting help from a mutant like me is what it takes then fine."she shrugged.

He frowned,"But I have brought you out of hiding, the hunters have a greater chance of finding you now." Élise winced and subconsciously rubbed at her back, the memory of how she got the nasty scar rearing its' ugly head.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "Yes. They will have a greater chance of finding me now. But it's a risk I'm going to have to take. There are two things I cannot do in my right mind. I can't turn my back on family. And I can't turn my back on a friend in need." she declared.

Élise had clearly stunned the gentle giant, seeing as his jaw had slacked a bit and his glowing blue optics laid on her form, unwavering. She hardly knew him, but she would risk the possibility of capture anyways?

She's aligning herself with him already? He did expect her to do this sometime during her stay at the base yes, but he did not expect her to do it on the first day she was here. The way her blue-grey eyes seen it, they were friends. Despite just meeting, they were friends.

She would give him her loyalty as a friend. She was trusting him. She was trusting him after talking to him for a couple of minutes. There was no way on Cybertron he would betray it. But he couldn't help but wonder, 'why'?

She couldn't help the giggle that slipped past her lips. That dumbfounded look was rather strange-looking on him if she had to be honest. It didn't suit him. She took a few steps forward and gently moved his jaw back up and held it there, waiting for him to hold it there himself.

This seemed to snap him out of it because he jerked back a bit and shook his massive head, shuttering his optics a few looked down and seen the young woman was smiling at him, unable to hide her amusement. Optimus felt his cheek plates heat up a bit in embarrassment. He cleared his throat, regaining his composure.

He dipped his head towards the woman in gratitude,"Thank you Élise." he softly thanked. She smiled and patted his over sized leg, "You're welcome,_grand gars."_ she whispered.

She took a few steps back and took a quick breath. "So, do I get the pleasure of meeting the rest of your team? Or are you just going to grace me with your presence the entire time I'm here?" she asked in a teasing way.

He chuckled and a mischievous tone had over taken his voice,"While I prefer just gracing you with the presence of myself. I suppose I could introduce you to the rest of my men if you wish."

Élise laughed and nodded," I believe I do wish to." she replied. He pretended to look disappointed but it disappeared when she began to laugh some more. Optimus had quickly found out that her laughter had been contagious and couldn't help but chuckle along with her.

Hey! Thank you guys for popping in and giving my story the time of day, it means a lot! Thanks for the reviews as well :) . Sorry if Optimus seemed OOC. Sorry for any grammar of spelling errors you find too.

**Google Translations:**

**monsieur is french for: **_Mister_

**grand gars is french for: **_Big guy_


	5. Meeting Ratchet

"Élise, this is our Chief Medical Officer Ratchet ". In front of Élise, was a yellow bot a bit shorter than Optimus, working on something on a giant medical table for the Autobots. At the sound of his leader's voice he had paused and turned to the duo, revealing his Hummer H2 rescue vehicle design as his armor.

"Ratchet, this is Élise Cross, Epp's niece." Optimus introduced. Ratchet looked at her curiously on Optimus's shoulder, "The gifted youngling?" he questioned. Élise nodded her head,"_Oui, ce est vrai._ Unless of course _Oncle_ Epps has been hiding mutant family members from me, but I doubt that." she shrugged with a small smile.

Ratchet looked a bit taken back at the sound of another language escaping her lips but he shook it off and took in the young woman,"I admit I am very curious about you young one. When Optimus had informed us of a mutant relative of Epps was coming to help us, I admit I was skeptical." he said and suddenly Élise felt this foreign tingling sensation going over her body.

Out of instinct she went into 'infiltration mode'- she turned herself invisible, inaudible and phased through Optimus's shoulder. She phased through the entire length of his arm, sending out small neutralizing charges along the way so he wouldn't be able to tell that she was phasing through him.

When she had phased through his finger she grabbed onto it at the last second, sent another quick neutralizing charge to the lower half of his body and swung herself into his hip before repeating the process down his leg. All of that was executed in one smooth motion and in merely a matter of seconds.

When she had reached the ground, she shook her head and attempted to get a hold of herself. What in the world was that? Ratchet wouldn't have hurt her. He said himself that he was curious. He just wanted a scan of her body to learn more about her since she would be here for a while. With a sigh she shook her head again and turned her attention to the two confused and worried bots.

Optimus stared at his shoulder in shock. She was really gone, he couldn't even feel her standing on his shoulder anymore. They both stared at his shoulder, where the little human had just been for what seemed like forever. As if willing her to reappear.

The flamed mech carefully patted his own shoulder to see if she was truely gone. When his hand touched metal and not flesh his optics widened. He turned to the medic and seen he shared the same bewildered look.

"Élise?" Optimus called out confused as he took a few cautious steps around the med bay, as if afraid he would step on her invisible form. Ratchet had broken out of his stupor and blinked twice,"What in the name of Primus just happened?" he turned to his friend with an impressed but concerned look on his metallic features.

"I believe that would be Élise's powers in action. You must have startled her when you ran a scan on her, or at least tried to."Optimus informed gently. Ratchet shook his head with a frown,"I did not mean to startle her. I did not think she would do that."

Optimus chuckled and patted his friend on the shoulder," It's quite alright. I'm sure Élise realizes this as well. Hopefully she is still in the room and did not run off...I've told you not to run those scans with out consent, they're...as the humans say, creepy."

Ratchet grunted but didn't choose to reply to his last comment. "But Optimus my scans say she is not in the room at all, it's just us. How in the name of Cybertron are we supposed to find her if we cannot even see, hear or track her?" he asked running another useless scan. Nothing. And it would stay that way as long as Élise wanted it too.

"You could ask nicely" she pipped up, letting herself be heard to the yellow medic alone. His head snapped up and looked around for the source of her voice. "Ratchet? What's wrong?" Optimus questioned, noticing the medic's strange actions.

Ratchet gave him a questioning look, "Didn't you just hear her? She just spoke." Optimus raised an eye ridge and slowly shook his head 'no'. "Sweet Primus, I'm hearing things" he murmured running a servo over his face.

Élise giggled,"No you're not _chéri._ Optimus was right, these are my powers in action." she said jogging up to his yellow foot and placing an invisible hand on it. Ratchet started a bit and stared down at a seemingly empty floor. She was there. He could feel her. He could also feel Optimus's curious gaze but he ignored him.

He slowly knelt down and stared at the spot where he could feel her hand and waited. She smiled and slowly let herself go back to normal, enjoying the sight of his curious expression morphing into an amazed look.

"Still skeptical about me?" she asked quirking an eyebrow as she finished. He didn't say anything for a few moments, he just stared. Élise smiled and patted his foot, hoping to snap him out of it.

It had worked.

Ratchet shuttered his optics and turned back to Optimus, making sure he wasn't the only one seeing this. Optimus's relieved look sent towards Élise reassured him that he was not just seeing things. He turned back to the patiently waiting woman and shook his head,"No. If anything you have just further peaked my interest."

He subconsciously got ready to try to get another scan of her but he stopped himself when he remembered that's what cause all this is the first place."My apologies about earlier, I did not mean to startle you into hiding" he frowned.

Élise's face softened as she waved off the apology," No harm done _chéri._ You just caught me off guard is all...So tell me, have you ever gotten a reaction like that to one of your scans?" she laughed.

Ratchet smirked and shook his yellow head," No. I do believe I can say I have never had a reaction like your before. Yours would be a first" he admitted. Élise smirked, "Good. I'm going to copy right that. No one else gets to use it. It's mine now."she jokingly declared before holding out her arms to the side and looking at Ratchet expectantly.

He watched her for a few moments curiously. "What?" he asked when nothing was said. What on Earth she doing? Why was she standing like that and looking at him? "I do believe she's inviting you to do the scan you wanted to do earlier" Optimus offered casting a look down to Élise.

She turned and nodded at Optimus with a smile. A look of recognition flashed through Ratchet's optics as he looked down as well, she had turned back towards him and smiled, flapping her arms a bit before going back to staying still. Optimus chuckled at the young woman's actions and shook his head amused. Ratchet let the corner of his lip plates turn up into a small smile before running the scan he wanted.

Élise shivered as she felt the familiar tingling sensation run over her body. "Good Lord, that was tingly. My word" she said putting her arms down once the scan was finished and dramatically shivered. She turned away from Ratchet and walked towards an amused Optimus.

With a puppy dog look she reached her arms up and grabbed at the air childishly. He smiled and bent down, placing his palm up in an inviting way. She clambered into his palm and braced herself for the long way up. Optimus slowly lifted himself up, curling his digits in a bit and kept his hand against his chest.

A strange sound could be heard from inside his chest and it had captured Élise's interest. She made her way to his chest and placed a ear on his chest to get a better listen. It was a humming sound, a strong and steady one. But she was also picking up electrical pulses from it.

His heart maybe?

If it wasn't, what else could be in his chest making that noise?

"Optimus?" she called not moving from her position. "Yes?" he asked unfurling his digits to get a better look at the woman in his hand. He grew confused at the sight, what was she doing? As if hearing his un-voiced question, she straightened and placed a hand on his chest.

"I can hear the humming from inside your chest. I could sense some electrical pulses from it too. That's your heart isn't it?" she stated but it came out as a question. He nodded," Spark" he corrected. "What?" she asked confused, she had been talking about a heart, his.

Why would he randomly say spark?

"What you hear is my spark, the equivalent of a human heart" he explained."Ohhh~" she nodded understandingly. "Incredible, simply incredible" Ratchet suddenly murmured. "Hm?" She questioned.

"Your readings. They're fascinating. The way your atoms move, to allow you to phase... they simply just slip past the spaces between the atoms of whatever you're phasing through... You're molecules vibrate into a new quantum frequency... You're intangible in a sense." he concluded.

"That's right. Your scans told you all that? I'm impressed" she said honestly. A proud look flashed across Ratchet's face as he returned to his scan's readings.

"Do you think that if you were attacked, you could shift into a "phasing" state of some sorts so that an oncoming projectile would pass through you harmlessly?" he asked. She didn't bother to hesitate with the answer, " Oh yeah, with out a doubt." she answered with a confident nod of her head.

She found she could do that when she had hosted a little cook out with Dean, Sean, Garren, Ronnie and a few other mutant friends of hers. It had been around sunset when Ronnie had gotten the bright idea to play touch football. The others were all up for it but Élise wasn't. She watched football, she didn't play it.

Hell, she could hardly **hold** a football the correct way, why would she want to play a game where it required **throwing** and **catching** too? So she had stayed off to the side, cleaning up their mess from the cookout and occasionally stopped to watch her friends play.

It had gotten a little dark and the game was still going on, so she had went inside to flip on a switch to the outside lights on the house, but they didn't work. Élise brought out a light bulb and cautiously made her way to the light, the touch down marker was only a few feet in front of her and her friends were playing right near it.

She managed to change the light bulb and the light had successfully flickered on. "Watch out Élise!" was the only warning she got before she spotted the football spiraling directly at her. Instead of being intelligent and moving _out_ of the way_,_ she squeaked and covered her face with her hands, waiting for the impending pain to come. But it never did.

She slowly brought her hands back down to her sides and looked around confused. Where did the ball go?

"Woah, Élise...I didn't know you could do that!" Dean said shocked. She looked at the rest of her friends and seen they were shocked too. "What are you talking about?" she asked, "Where's the ball?".

"It phased through you, dudette" one of her mutant friends said in awe. "It's behind you" he pointed. Élise looked behind her and sure enough, there was the football, laying there harmlessly.

"I knew you could, like, phase as you passed through stuff. But I didn't know you could,like, stand there and let things phase through you" said another one of mutant friends as she took down her hair and threw it back up into a ponytail.

Élise shrugged," I didn't know either" was her simple answer.

Hey! Thanks for the read and the reviews! I appreciate it :). Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.

Google Translations:

**Oui, ce est vrai** is french for:_Yes, that's right_

**chéri**_ is french for: __darling_

**Oncle** is french for:_ uncle_


	6. Meeting Ironhide and Sideswipe

"If you could go on SharkTank, what would you're product be?"

"Boner bait"

The women at the table choked on their food and drinks at the vulgar responce. Optimus had dropped Élise off at the cafeteria for an hour lunch break a few minutes ago and promised he would be back to continue their little tour and meet n' greet with the other bots. However he didn't think of the fact that Élise only knew four humans there; her Uncle Epps, Lennox, Conner and Esteban. And none of them were in the cafeteria with her.

Luckily a kind woman had seen her sitting at a table by herself and invited her over to her table, where she met; Rene who stood at 5'7'', had red curly hair, pale skin decorated with freckles and blue eyes. Grace was 5'5'', had pale skin, blonde wavy hair and green eyes. Lucy had tanned skin, stood at 5'6'', had brown hair with blonde streaks and brown eyes. Then there was Tiara- who had invited her over in the first place. She nearly matched Élise in height, standing at 5'8'', had dark skin, shoulder length black hair and brown eyes.

Élise laughed at the women struggling to not choke and laugh at the same time. "B-boner B-bait?" Renee laughed wiping her face clear of diet pepsi."Yeah! It's fish tackle shaped like a man's dick! Because we all know fish love dicks-" Élise was cut off by Grace, who had waved her hand around to get her attention.

"W-wait, wait wait. Lemme stop you right there!" she laughed. "If you had seriously went on SharkTank and said that I'm pretty sure you would have been kicked out before you even got the chance to explain your product." Élise scoffed good-naturedly and dismissed the comment.

"Aw what? You're crazy! What's more entertaining than watching a dick flop around?" she questioned, wiggling her arm to simulate said dick flopping around. The women were sent into another round of hysterics.

"Especially in the water when it's all wet and slick and just flopping all over the place! How could a fish possibly resist the temptation? I mean, I don't know if I could, how about you guys?" she laughed as she continued, knowing the women were just about to keel over and die from laughter.

It had been a while before any one of them could form a sentence."Wha-wha-what t-t-the he-hell Élise?!" Tiara cackled and to Tiara's embarrassment, a small snort had emitted from her.

"You snorted!" Élise shrieked with laughter and pounded her fist into the table repeatedly, unable to control herself. After a few minutes of straight up laughing, the women managed to get a hold of their selves and pull it back together. "O-oh bo-boy. That was funny" Rene panted, fanning her reddened face.

"I can't remember the last time I have ever laughed like that before. Man you're funny, Élise" Lucy complimented throwing the curly light brown haired woman a smile. "Aw thank you! I feel special now." Élise smiled contently. They were all silent for a few moments before Élise smirked and asked a question.

"Would any of you guys buy my Boner Bait?"

"B-boner bait?" Lennox laughed. "You would propose **Boner bait **of all things to a bunch of multi billionaires for them to invest in?""Yeah! I mean obviously the title would be the first thing they'd have to get over, of course. But they could come in sparkles, rainbows, have rainbow ponies on them and they could be glow in the dark too!" Élise laughed as she and Lennox walked through the halls of the Autobot hangar.

Lennox had came and gotten her from the cafeteria, explaining that Optimus had been called to a meeting and he couldn't be with her as they finished up her tour, so Lennox had agreed on taking over. "Well it would be that or the lay down limo." she shrugged.

Lennox quirked and eye brow as he looked at the woman next to him with an incredulous look."The Lay down limo?" he repeated with a small smile, "What, Is it just a limo with no seats and an incredibly comfy floor?" he asked. "Yeah! I mean, who wants to sit, when you can lay! Like seriously dude!" she laughed throwing her hands up for emphasis.

He laughed along with her and shook his head. He had no idea what he was going to do with Epps's niece.

"Oh don't go shaking your head at me like that, you know you love me." she laughed nudging his side with her elbow. "You're going to feed me too." she continued with a smile," Because trust me dude, a girl gets hungry! And then you're going to get me those little crystal light raspberry lemonade packets you put in a water bottle, I love those things. I love chicken wings too now that I think about it." she trailed off.

She inhaled a large breath as she realized something. "O.m.g. dude! The cafeteria should like so serve those when they're open, I'd be in there all day just pigging out on raspberry lemonade crystal light and hot wings. I'm pretty sure I could die happy then, I wouldn't even care, Lennox." she smiled.

Lennox laughed and nodded, "I'll be sure to mention something to the cooks, Élise" he chuckled. That actually wasn't a bad idea if he had to be completely honest, he'd like it and was sure the other soldiers would too.

An explosion suddenly shook the air and was quickly followed by gun fire. Élise gasped in fright and turned her head to a calm Lennox. "Lennox?" Élise asked worridly and stopped in her tracks. Why were they still walking towards the sound of the explosion and gun fire? Did he not just hear all of that?

Lennox seen her frightened look and gave a comforting smile, patting her back,"Don't worry Élise, that's just Ironhide. From the sound of it, I'd say he's training." he explained. "Ironhide?" she echoed. "Yeah, Ironhide. He's the Autobot weapons' specialist and the toughest bot here besides Optimus." he supplied and pulled the woman along with him towards the hangar where Ironhide was in.

"Ow! That hurt Ironhide! We're sparring, lighten it up" a masculine voice complained as they entered. Élise gaped at the sight. In front of her were two large bots. One was a silver bot smaller than his sparring partner, had two large swords attached to his wrists and wheels for feet.

His sparring partner was a bulky black mech with cannons attached to his wrists. The silver bot skated elegantly out of the way of the other mech's attacks and dished out his own when he could.

"The enemy won't lighten up when you're out there on the battle field Sideswipe, you know that. Stay still fraggit!" he roared when the smaller bot had successfully skated out of the way of another attack.

Sideswipe laughed and shook his head,"Nah, I think I'm good" he smirked leaning out of the reach of what would have been a rather nasty punch and retaliated with his own. He shoved one of his swords into the ground and used it as leverage to swing himself around, delivering a powerful kick to Ironhide's face.

Ironhide grunted and stumbled back, holding his jaw. Sideswipe tackled a stunned Ironhide to the ground and the two began exchanging punches as they rolled. This went on for a few minutes before the fighting finally stopped.

Ironhide had gotten Sideswipe trapped in a headlock and gave no motion of letting go no matter what the wheeled bot did to try and free himself.

After a while Sideswipe stopped and slacked, venting air heavily. "Who's the best?" Ironhide asked smugly. "You are" he mumbled quietly."I'm sorry what was that? I didn't quit catch it." Ironhide asked smirking. "You are!" Sideswipe repeated louder, a hit of annoyance in his voice.

Ironhide laughed and let his friend go. "Nice try youngling but you're not going to be taking me down any time soon" Ironhide said patting Sideswipe's shoulder."That's what you think rust bucket, I almost had you a couple of times and you know it." Sideswipe smirked.

Ironhide scoffed with a roll of his optics," If deluding yourself is what's going to get you a good night's recharge then go ahead and do that." he dismissed and turned around to exit the training room but stopped when he seen his charge and a woman he's never met before standing at the door.

"Hello William. Who's this?" He questioned as Sideswipe rolled up to his side."Ironhide, Sideswipe. This is Élise Cross, Epps's niece. Élise, this is Ironhide and Sideswipe." He introduced.

A look of recognition flashed across the bots face plates, " The phasing femme?" Ironhide assumed.

Élise smiled, "It's a pleasure to meet you both." she greeted and then turned to Ironhide,with a nod, "_Votre hypothèse serait bien, monsieur__._ From what we had heard out in the hall earlier, I'm assuming you're quite the weapons' specialist and I'm assuming your friend here is quite the swords master?" She asked motioning to Sideswipe.

Élise could have sworn she seen their egos inflate a bit as she complimented the two bots in front of her. She couldn't hide the smile that spread across her lips when they began to show off their weapons to the young woman.

Men and their toys.

As soon as you compliment them, they can't help but show them off. "What do you say to another round Sideswipe? It'll give me the chance to really show off my cannons and maybe a chance for you to redeem yourself" He taunted.

Sideswipe smirked and nodded,"You're on rust bucket." he accepted. Before he rolled back to the middle of the floor, he crouched down to Élise with a mischievous gleam to his optics,"Watch this" he whispered with a wink.

Élise felt her cheeks grow a bit warm as she smiled and nodded to the silver bot. He clicked a button on his wrist before standing tall and rolling back to their previous spots on the floor.

Neither of them had moved for a few moments, waiting for the other to strike first. Ironhide grew impatient and charged. But at the first step he took, a clicking sound could be heard from the floor and an explosion of pink and purple erupted from under his pedes.

The explosion had knocked the now pink and purple weapons specialist on his back and dazed him.

Élise's jaw slacked in shock. Did that seriously just happen? She looked and seen Lennox had a similar expression. Sideswipe however, did not. The wheeled swords master thought it had been the funniest thing in the world and was laughing hysterically.

After the initial shock of it all, Élise began to laugh along with the silver bot and was shortly followed by Lennox." Damn I'm good! That's 2 for 2 today, I'm on a roll!" Sideswipe howled.

The trio continued with their laughter for a while until the human and mutant woman seen Ironhide begin to pick himself up. Lennox and Élise had done their best to quickly silence themselves and look innocent.

Sideswipe had not.

Ironhide had a murderous look to his face as he stood to his full height. "That" he growled ominously. "Was the **last** straw, Sideswipe". It didn't seem possible but Élise could have sworn she seen Sideswipe pale at the sight of the seething weapons specialist.

With out warning Sideswipe whipped around with a panicked yell and raced towards the exit with Ironhide transforming into a black GMC Topkick and racing after him. Right before Sideswipe passed Élise, he leaned down and snatched her up, placing her on his shoulder and racing away.

"Show me that what Optimus said was true little femme. Help me out!" he pleaded as he skirted around a corner and continued down the hallway, skillfully avoiding all the humans that occupied the halls.

Élise snapped out of her miniature daze from being snatched up so quickly and blinked a few times as she took in her surroundings. She was thoroughly surprised at his speed because they had already reached the center of the Autobot hangar in such a short amount of time.

"After the next turn you take, just head for the wall across from us. I'll take care of the rest" she promised. Sideswipe nodded and did as he was directed to do. With precise timing Élise had phased them through the wall, landing them in the Autobot Rec room.

The silver bot skidded to a stop and waited for the roar of the Topkick to pass. After it did, he looked around in amazement and then down to Élise with a grateful smile.

"You, little femme. Are amazing" he declared.

Hey! Thanks for the read and reviews. It makes me happy to know you guys are enjoying it and are looking forward to the updates :D. Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.

**Google Translations:**

**Votre hypothèse serait bien, monsieur **is french for: _Your assumption would be right, sir_


	7. Oh no

"Hey, Élise? When you're done, the Big Guy wants to see you." Rene called poking her head into the women's wash racks.

"Okay, thank you _coeur doux_!" Élise called over the roar of the water. She finished rinsing out her hair and turned off the water. She stepped out, dried off and got ready for the day.

She made her way down the halls of the base, returning the greetings with a smile that were thrown her way as she passed the people she had befriended over the last month. In a few minutes she had reached the Autobot meeting room and walked in.

"_Bonjour les gars!_" she called cheerfully. "_Bonjour _Élise!" Bluestreak returned whole heartedly. Élise laughed and nodded to the blue and silver sniper. She loved Bluestreak. He had to be the sweetest bot you'd ever meet. He knew how to have fun, laugh, take a joke and even throw one back.

Occasionally he'd even help out with some of the pranks Sideswipe would pull with her and would even go out of his way to cheer her or the other soldiers up if it was a bad day for them. Yes, he was a chatter box but it was adorable to watch him just ramble on and on and on and then quickly apologize for it. It was no surprise that he had gotten himself quite the fan club with the soldiers, especially the women.

The other bots threw the woman their own greetings as she was lifted onto the meeting table by Optimus. "So, what is this all about?" she asked after returning the greetings. "Late last night we received intel on the rising of Decepticon activity back in the states." Optimus began.

Élise frowned,"Then why weren't you guys deployed? Isn't it you're job to stop Decepticon attacks?" she asked. "It is. However, they were not attacking" he said sub-spacing a strange device from his subspace and setting it on the table. "They weren't attacking anything. They were just _around_, according to our sources." he tapped the middle of the device and a light flashed upwards and stretched out, forming a holographic screen.

On that screen had been a basic outline of the U.S. and there had been a bunch of black dots scattered around the mid-west but there had been a big red one in Nebraska. What were the Decepticons doing in Nebraska of all places?

"The black dots are where all the spottings have been made, but this red dot is where they would depart from and return too in the span of a few days." he continued and tapped the screen twice, zooming in on the precise location of the red dot. It had been an abandoned warehouse out in a very very rural area surrounded by trees. Obvious but smart.

"So...you want me to go in there and figure out what they're doing?" Élise guessed. "That's right. Sideswipe will escort you out there, Ironhide and Bluestreak will be hanging back a few miles to provide back up while Ratchet and I, will remain behind to watch the base." he explained. He waited for any complaints to arise but nodded when there were none.

"Be prepared to leave in one hour." He advised. The occupants of the room nodded collectively.

"Be careful in there Élise. You never know what can happen when you're dealing with Decepticons." Ratchet warned frowning.

Optimus nodded in agreement,"Ratchet's right Élise, our enemies are not to be underestimated." Élise smiled at their concerns. "Dont, worry I won't." She promised," And even if I somehow did manage to get in trouble I'd have my knights in shining armor to rescue me." She joked with a smile.

...

Keep moving. Don't stop. Almost there.

Élise swiftly made her way though the abandoned warehouse, careful not to knock anything over as she trotted along.

She was set on getting to her destination and confident that her powers would keep her safe. She skirted her way around a corner and continued on her way. It was safe to say this warehouse was alot more that met the eye.

So far she had taken four right turns, Seventy-two steps, down a flight of stairs, Three left turns, Sixty more steps and...here! Élise stopped as she heard movement in the room behind the door.

She smirked and quickly phased through the door.

The room was dark and what she could she around her, alien technology had been here and there, thick wires were all over and in the middle of the room had been a throne of sorts, she unfortunately couldn't see who was on the throne though. The only source of light had been from the holes in the ceiling that had filtered sunlight through the floor above.

Élise looked around and seen the outline of a mech with red eyes kneeling in front of the throne. Even though it was unnecessary, she kept close to the shadows and made her way closer to the two mechs.

The mech kneeling had turned out to have black and white armor. He had been kneeling in front of some bot with red eyes as well but she couldn't make out his figure or the color of his armor. All she knew was that he was huge according from where his ruby red eyes laid high in the air.

"Have you located the Autobot base yet Barricade?" a deep, raspy voice inquired from the shadows. Barricade shook his head, "No, Lord Meagatron."he admitted hesitantly.

"Barricade!" the mech boomed, slamming a fist down on the arm of the throne. " Are you, or are you not a hunter?!" Megatron demanded. Barricade ducked his head down, "I am" he answered. If you listened hard enough you could tell his voice had shook a bit as he had answered.

"Then find them! Right now, they are weak and distracted! Especially with their little saboteur clinging to life. That saboteur has been nothing but a pain in my aft for thousands of cycles! And with him about to pass on into the Well of Sparks, that blasted medic of theirs will do all he can to keep him from doing so.

They won't be focusing on their defenses. Now is the time to attack! Get your aft into gear Barricade and find that base! Soundwave has reported that Decepticon reinforcements will be arriving in one month and you have better of found the base by then. Do you compute?" He growled.

Barricade bowed his head,"Yes, Lord Megatron "Barricade grimanced. " Good. Now get out of my sight!" Megatron snarled. Barricade bowed his head again before standing and walking out of the room.

Élise frowned. This was not good. Not good at all. She needed to get back to the others and tell them what was happening.

...

"Decepticon reinforces? Optimus, we cannot afford anymore Decepticons on this planet with out our own reinforcements. Yes, the humans are formidable out in the field but there is only so much they can do. We need Autobots." Ironhide advised.

Optimus nodded in understanding. Ironhide was right. While they all appreciated the humans for fighting along side of them, there was only so much they could do against the Decepticons.

"I will get in contact with Bumblebee and have him return to base. How are Jazz's repairs coming along Ratchet?" Optimus asked turning to the yellow medic next to him.

Ratchet sighed heavily, "I repaired what I could best to my ability but I need to get to his inner workings, that's where the main problem is. But I can not reach them. I would need an extra set of hands. Small hands and Sideswipe is to squeamish to help, he'd only make things worse."

Sideswipe opened his mouth to protest but closed it. Ratchet had a point. He didn't even like going for his tune ups or getting repairs with Ratchet despite knowing the bot for all his life basically. He didn't know why he was this way, Ratchet never harmed him before. Yes, he had more than once gotten a whack on the helm with those infamous wrenches of his but that was it.

" Well I could help" Élise offered. Five sets of crystal blue eyes snapped down to her small form. " You would Élise?" Sideswipe questioned a bit hopefully.

" _Bien sûr._ I'm not going to sit back and do nothing, especially if I know that there's a chance that I can help." she smiled and turned to Optimus with a knowing smile, "After all, I don't turn my back on a friend in need." Optimus returned the smile and turned to his life long friend," Well Ratchet? Would you be willing to allow Élise to help you?"

A look of hope flashed across his face, then to doubt and worry and then back to hope again. "Very well" he nodded slowly, "But you're going to do exactly what I say Élise, this is no joking matter." he warned sternly.

"Of course, of course. Cool beans not spicy beans. I got you Ratchet, no worries!" she assured with a bright smile. He vented air and shook his head, fighting off smile that threatened to take over his face like it always did when he was speaking with the young woman. Optimus chuckled softly and stood signaling that the meeting was a few moments from being over.

"Then it's decided. Ratchet and Élise will begin working on Jazz to get him up and running again. Ironhide, you, Sideswipe and Bluestreak will begin a three way free for all training session. But do not seriously wound each other, Ratchet does not have the time to repair any of you because things were taken too far. Am I understood, Ironhide?" Optimus asked.

Sideswipe and Bluestreak snickered as the black mech childishly pouted but nodded nonetheless. "Good. Then I will get in contact with Bumblebee and have him report back to base for active duty. I'm also going to have to inform Lennox of what Élise discovered, so he can prepare his troops and then I will join you. Any questions?" There were none.

"Good. Now let's move, we have one month until Decepticon reinforcements arrive. I want us to be as prepared as possible."

Hey! First, sorry I didn't update yesterday, I had a brain fart. Anyways thanks for the read and reviews. It makes me happy to know you guys are enjoying it and are looking forward to the updates :D. Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.

**Google Translations:**

**_Bien sûr_**is french for:_ Of course_

**Bonjour les gars **is french for: _Hello guys_

**coeur doux **is french for: _sweet heart_


	8. Helping out

"Did you wash your hands?"

"Yes, I washed my hands!"

"Are you lieing to me?"

"Noo~. I did wash my hands!"

"Élise?"

"Ratchet?"

"Go wash your hands again, for safety precautions."

"Ughhh! You're such a corn hole." The curly haired woman whined as she slowly dragged herself to the sink, every few steps she would look over her shoulder and continue walking to the sink.

She slouched at the sink and looked over her shoulder again. The yellow medic made a 'go ahead' gesture and waited for her to wash her hands 'again'. She slowly lifted an arm up and flicked the lever upwards and turning it to the right for warm water.

She sent another look over her shoulder to the medic before proceeding to wash her hands. Once he had seen she was doing as she was told, he huffed good naturedly with a shake of his head. That little femme had been to much. But he couldn't help but have a soft spot for her.

"When you're finished, come into the back room." he called, going there himself. "I'd be there faster if I wasn't washing my hands **again**!" she called back. "Safety precautions!" he said pulling back the curtain that seperated the two sections of the med bay and walking in.

"Bull shit!" he heard her call and shut off the faucet. He rolled his optics with a smirk and walked up to a familiar metal table that he has been working at endlessly for the last few months.

He pulled back the sheet covering the little silver bot and tossed it to the side. The fact that Jazz had still been clinging onto life after Megatron ripped him in half was a blessing from Primus himself. Well, it was that and the fact that Jazz had been a rather stubborn mech.

He always had been. He was also a sweet talker. He wouldn't be surprised if Jazz had probably made a deal with Primus, to keep him in this world until Ratchet could fix him.

"That's Jazz?"Élise asked from a distance as she was jumping up and down, hoping to get some sort of view of the mech she was to be working on. Ratchet kneeled down and offered his palm to her. She quickly ran into his open palm and held onto one of his fingers as he lifted her up.

"Yes, this is Jazz." Ratchet answered as he set her down on the table next to his body. Élise took in the silver bot in front of her. He was a short mech compared to some of the other bots on base. But he was still huge compared to her and the other humans on base. His frame had been a strange mix in between lithe and bulky.

His plating was an undented silver, but you could see welding marks around his body. His middle section had been left open, revealing exposed, torn and frayed wires that had yet to be fixed.

A recently fixed visor had also covered his optics but instead of a bright, glowing blue as Ratchet had remembered. It was a very dull and dim blue- a nearly grey color. "Well on the outside he looks fine. Does he like, have internal bleeding or something?" she asked.

Ratchet considered her words and nodded," Yes. In a sense he does. And that's why I needed another pair of hands to help me with this. I'm going to lower you into his frame as best I can, and I'm going to coach you through this. One step at a time. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do." she replied with a nod. "Good now, step into this harness and put these glasses, it's going to get incredibly bright in here" he instructed handing her a red and white harness and tinted glasses.

She did so and Ratchet brought over a few ropes and a surgery light. He finished strapping her into the harness and making sure everything was locked into place three times before he tossed the ropes over the surgery light above them.

He slightly tugged on the ropes and Élise's feet left the ground as she 'eep'ed in surprise. "Little warning next time,_se il vous plaît?_ Scared the hell out of me" she mumbled holding a hand over her heart.

"My apologies" he said with a hint of sarcasm. "Hey!" she snapped "I heard that sarcasm in the apology! You just basically canceled the whole meaning of the apolo- AHH!" Ratchet had jerked her higher into the air and sent her swinging.

"Ratchet!" she yelled in protest. "What?" he asked innocently. "Don't look so innocent you did that on purpo-AHHH!" she was brought even higher and was swinging harder. " Ratchet!" She shrieked as she flailed her arms and legs.

Ratchet rolled his optics and gently grabbed onto the swinging girl as she swung his way again. " Oh calm down youngling. You're fine."

He flicked on the light and even with the glasses on, she couldn't help but flinch a bit at the amount of light there was and how harsh it was.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he moved the light over Jazz's middle section. " Yeah, I'm fine. You really weren't kidding when you said it was going to get really bright were you?" She asked blinking behind the glasses.

"Why would I lie to you about that?"he asked meeting her blue grey eyes. Élise squirmed under his gaze and shrugged shyly. " I dunno. People like to exaggerate and I didn't think it'd be that bright."

Ratchet snorted," I would not exaggerate about something that could lead to potential harm. That's something you would do well to remember about me. I'm only looking after your well being. I would never intend intentional harm on anyone under my care." he stated passionately.

Élise didn't say anything for a few moments until she remembered what she had been told before.

"Sideswipe and Ironhide told me how you throw wrenches at them when they would come to you for repairs or tune ups. They both said you've cut down on it but why would you do that? " She asked confused.

From what he had just told her and from what Sideswipe and Ironhide told her, canceled out the meaning behind Ratchet's words.

Ratchet made a mental log to speak with Ironhide and Sideswipe later about speaking about him behind his back. And maybe even throw a few wrenches sine they obviously missed it so much.

Ratchet sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation." I've thrown wrenches at them because they'Ve either insulted me, refused medical treatment or they wouldn't stay still during medical treatment. Other than that I have not intentionally harmed anyone under my care."

"Ohhh~ that makes sense then. Okay. Let's get to work on Jazz. Sooner we get him fixed, the sooner I can eat. I'm starving." She laughed.

"Élise. You're always hungry." He pointed out. She pondered over the accusation and then nodded. He had a point. If she wasn't with Ratchet or with any of the other bots, she could be found in the cafeteria eating.

" Not the point." She dismissed lightly, " Now come on, lower me in I'm ready!" She looked just about ready to jump out of the palm of his hand and free fall into Jazz's exposed frame.

Ratchet curled in his digits and blocked her in with his other so she wouldn't be tempted to do so. " I can tell you are going to get reckless very soon and I don't believe I'd enjoy cleaning up your organic mess you'd leave on Jazz off. Calm down. You'll be in there soon enough"he promised and set her on his chest.

"I'm going to lower you in as deep as the rope will allow me to, if you need to get lower just tell me and I'll take the rope and lower you in even farther.

Once you get down there you're going to see thick, glowing tubes-well I am not sure how glowing they'll be because of the amount of energon he's undoubtedly lost- but anyways, you're going to see them.

Some are going to be torn and I need you to take this welding torch and weld them together. You're going to repeat the process as many times as needed for any torn tubes. I will bring you back up for a break if needed. But you'll have to go back down to work on the frayed wires that are out of my reach." Ratchet explained.

Élise stared blankly at the bot in front of her, dazed with the amount of information he had just unloaded on her.

"Jesus Christ. I don't even remember what the hell you just said. All I got was fix the shit when you get down there. Okay, got it. Gimme this." She grabbed the welding helmet, plopped it on her head and grabbed the torch before jumping in Jazz's frame.

"Élise!" Ratchet's terrified yell echoed in the motionless bots frame. He quickly grabbed onto the rope hanging from the surgery light and stopped her free fall.

"Awww!" Ratchet sighed in relief before glaring down into the frame. "Are you out of your processor?! What were you thinking?! What if I hadn't of caught the rope?!" He yelled.

" I would have phased through his body and landed on the ground." She answered honestly. Ratchet sighed again and shook his head,"Just get to work please." He said as he lowered her down a bit more.

"Aye aye _capitaine_!"

Hey, thanks for the reads and reviews! It means a lot to me :). Have a good day! Sorry for and spelling or grammar errors you found.

**Google Translations**

**Capitaine** is French for_: **captain.**_

**Se il vous plaît** is french for__ : **please**__


	9. I'm so sorry :P

I'm so sorry about all the screw ups, I don't know whats going on. So for now hold on, let me try and figure out what's going on with my chapters. Be back soon!


	10. Bluestreak's talk(Fixed for real!)

**A/N: Ok, I'm pretty sure I got this right now. Shout out to shadow-binder for pointing out the chapter mistakes. I most likely got the titles confused and then when I went back to fix it, it just went down hill from there. So the "Helping out" chapter is back to normal now. And this one is definitely fixed. So yeay! I'm sorry again :'( I'll try to make sure it won't happen again.**

Ratchet sat down with a relieved sigh and sipped from his cup of energon. After hours of working on Jazz with Élise they had finally stopped for the night. Élise was passed out on one of the human medical beds, softly snoring away.

He was more than satisfied to say the least. Jazz's reading had gotten much better as she continuously welded the tubes back together and worked on the frayed wires. Ratchet had slipped an I.v into one of his main energon lines to get more energon into his system and welded his middle section back together once everything was finished.

It was safe to say Jazz was well on his way to a full recovery. Ratchet heard the med bay doors 'swoosh' open for the first time in hours and seen a curious blue and silver bot peeking his head around the corner shyly.

" Is Jazz any better? I know you and Élise have been locked up in here for hours and neither of you came out at all. Not that we're doubting either of you of course. But there had been screaming earlier and we weren't sure what was going on. But then it stopped so we thought everything was okay. Is everything okay? What if it's not okay? What are we going to do then-? Sorry, I'm talking too much aren't I?" Bluestreak's innocent voice filled with curiosity had ended with guilt.

Ratchet turned and seen the the young gunner looking at him with what humans call, 'puppy dog' eyes. "Of course you're talking too much, but if you weren't I'd be concerned about you" Ratchet lightly joked and motioned him to come closer.

The young gunner stepped out and made his way to the older bot, mindful of the sleeping human not too far away.

Ratchet nodded with a small smile on his face once he had sat down next to him, " Yes. There has been significant progress since Élise's work on him. His readings improved ten fold, I do not see why he would not make a full recovery." Bluestreak's face brightened at the medic's words.

Jazz was going to be okay. Their saboteur. Their brother in arms. One of his figurative family members, was going to be okay. Ratchet's smile grew a bit as he seen the younger bots face brighten with joy to the news.

He let the smile falter a bit though as he continued on, "Of course he would be on medical rest for a while. He's going to need time to re-adjust and to get moving again."

"And how long would you guess that would be for?" he asked. Surprisingly that was the only thing he asked. This had been one of Bluestreak's more serious moments. " Months...Long after Decepticon reinforcements arrive." Ratchet informed gravely.

The multi-colored bot vented air heavily," So what do you propose we do? We can't be expected to stay on this island forever. The Decepticons will be scouring the Earth for us if Barricade does not find us first." Bluestreak's rambling had came back a bit but it wasn't nervous or curious rambling like before.

"We will need some sort of evacuation system or a defense system or maybe a lock down type of sorts.I do not know. But I do know, that Jazz will not be able to defend himself from any type of attack. It'll be too strenuous on his body, he'll hurt himself before he hurts another. If anything, Élise will have to stay with him she can-" Ratchet stopped mid sentence and stared at the sleeping form of Élise, a thought came to him.

Bluestreak frowned and lightly touched the medic's shoulder,"Ratchet? What's wrong? Why are you looking at-". he cut himself off as he thought of the same thing as Ratchet.

"Élise." he breathed "Élise can hide him. She could hide this entire base from being spotted! She has never spoke about any limitations on her range of powers before. Do you think she could do it?" he asked hopefully with a hint of excitement.

"Yes, she may not have spoken about any limitations but there's also the possibility of physical strain. The question isn't if she can do it, of course she will. It's if she can** physically **manage it. The strain to hide an entire island filled with sand, vegetation, animals, a military base, humans and us would be enormous strain on anyone. Including Élise." he pointed out with a frown.

The young gunner deflated with defeat. Ratchet frowned and nudged his chin back up. "Come now youngling, don't be like that. We'll figure something out. Maybe she can and we'll go through with the thought. Or, maybe she can't and we'll have to figure something else out. But something will be figured out, we won't go down with out a fight." Ratchet assured.

Bluestreak nodded, and there was a hint of panic and worry in his optics but then it switched over to pain and longing. "Do you think Prowl would have a plan?" he asked softly.

Ratchet felt a pang of hurt hit his spark. Prowl was their military strategist. The best damn military strategist Cybertron had ever seen. And a great friend. He was always thinking about the future. Always getting them out of sticky situations. Doing what he had to, to make sure bots got out alive. He was quiet, competent, loyal and had possessed a lot more patience that Ratchet could only dream of having.

Prowl's dedication to logic and reason make him an excellent strategist, but not much of a socialite. He never really tended to get along well with his fellow Autobots, they found his strict obedience to protocol, stifling. The fact that he had an uptight personality sure doesn't help matters. He didn't react well to the unexpected, to the point that it would literally scramble his cerebral circuits, causing him to 'glitch' and go offline.

But none of that mattered to Bluestreak. To Bluestreak, Prowl was his father. An adoptive father yes, but a father nonetheless. Prowl was the one who had found him in the ruins of Praxis and took him in as his own.

He patted the young bot's back comfortingly,"I'm sure he would Bluestreak. I don't think there was ever a moment in that mech's life where he didn't have a plan." he said softly.

"I miss him. A lot. Do you think he's still alive?" Bluestreak sniffled. Ratchet's face softened as he moved himself closer to Bluestreak, "I know you do Bluestreak, we all do. But Prowl went on that last mission knowing that the survival rate was low. He and the others sacrificed their selves to give us time to get off Cybertron.

And we will honor them in that memory and many more. There is a chance that he and the others are alive but they are very slim. I miss him just as much as you do Bluestreak. But for my sanity's sake- I'm allowing myself to believe he has passed on into the Well of Sparks, it's easier for me that way.

I don't like it, but it makes getting through the day a bit easier- believing that they are finally free from this war and are watching over us, guiding us. Guiding you, Bluestreak. Just because he isn't here with you physically, doesn't mean he's not with you spiritually. He'll always be in your spark and you'll always be in his."

Thick, blue energon tears rolled down the gunner's face as he nodded to Ratchet's devastating but oddly comforting words. Ratchet stood, murmuring 'stay here' while he went to find a clean cloth to wipe away his tears.

Too bad he hadn't noticed that Bluestreak wasn't the only one who needed a rag to clean up their tears. Élise wasn't sure when she had began crying but she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Contrary to the belief of the two bots in the room, she wasn't asleep the entire time. She had been woken up when Bluestreak had first began his rambling but didn't let them know.

Could she hide this entire island and everything on it? She honestly could, she's had been holed up in a building before with other mutants that were hiding from hunters and she had needed to turn the building and the mutants inside, not only invisible but intangible as well. It definitely did work,seeing as she was still alive and kicking but it hadn't of turned out pretty, the physical and mental strain had nearly killed her.

She had to be brought back to life two times and even after that she was put into a six month coma. But that didn't mean she wouldn't do it again to help her friends.

She threw back the blankets and stood up from the bed before quickly making it again. She turned and ran for the med bay door, she had a certain flamed bot to talk to.

...

"Optimus, wake up!...Optimus!" Élise whispered loudly as she crouched over his ear on all fours, attempting to wake Optimus. After a few unsuccessful tries, she stood up and sent a little shock through the red and blue giant.

Unfortunately she didn't think this plan all the way out because as soon as she did, he jerked his head back-sending a squawking Élise onto the bed underneath them.

"Élise?Is that you?" he asked groggily as he turned towards the sound of squawking. "Yes, it's me!" she huffed sitting up and rubbing her head with a small glare. "What are you doing in here?" he asked, propping himself against the head rest.

"Listen to me, Jazz's fine. He'll be making a full recovery soon enough. No! Listen to me! He'll make a full recovery but it'll take a while for him to get up and going again. Like as in, long after the Decepticon reinforcements arrive.

If Barricade does not find us first, then I'm sure some other Decepticon will because they will be looking for this place. But I know of a way that can stop it, you guys just gotta do your part." she finished.

Optimus thought a minute before turning to the woman, determined. "What do we have to do?"

Hey! Thanks for the read and reviews. It makes me happy to know you guys are enjoying it and are looking forward to the updates :D. Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.


	11. Mysterious ship

"I want eyes on those monitors at all times, we need constant surveillance of not only the surrounding area but back in the states too. You men! Any incoming signals coming into the atmosphere?" Lennox asked loudly. The base was humming with activity in the early morning hours. Optimus had woken his men up, despite Élise's protests to wait until later. He got them updated on the situation and they in turn, woke up the humans. They needed to get to work now,not later.

News had spread like wild fire about Jazz's assured recovery and the impending danger of the Decepticons finding the base. "No, sir. All's quiet up there" a solider replied scanning his monitor. "Alright, but keep checking. If there's even a blip of a signal, I want to know about it." "Yes sir!" the soldier saluted and returned to his screen.

A sharp whistle and a quick call of his name had reached his ear drums. He looked around to find the source but it was nearly impossible with the sea of people bustling about. "It's Master Sergeant, sir. Down on the ground level by his niece. They're by docking bay 6." a young rookie pointed out as he paused in his tracks to point them out and continued on his way after getting the okay to leave.

"Thank you, son!" Lennox called as he raced down the stairs of the cat walk and approached the duo. He walked briskly over to Epps, who had a phone tucked in between his cheek and shoulder.

"Are you sure? How many? What are the coordinates?" Epps had asked. Élise was leaning in close to hear the reply and when she did, her eyes widened. She quickly turned and raced over to the men watching over the monitors, repeating what she had just heard. The men quickly began to type something in the computer to double check if the information they had been given was correct.

"Epps, what is it?" Lennox asked. Epps looked up, "N.A.S.A's spotted a foreign ship out by the moon with one of their satellites. They aren't sure if it's a friendly or enemy. 'Frenchie' over there," he nodded towards Élise," is giving the coordinates to the boys to pull up the image. But I need you to go get the Big guy and bring him in here. He'll know if the ship is Autobot or Decepticon. If I didn't need to stay on the phone with N.A.S.A I'd do it myself." he apologized with a small smile.

"It's fine, I'll be right back." Lennox said and jogged away from the black man. "_Oncle_ Epps! Come here and look at this!" The curly haired woman yelled from across the room. Epp's let loose a little sigh as he adjusted the phone in his hand and quickly made his way over to the men and woman hunched over the monitors.

"Pull it up for him." she instructed when he arrived. "Yes, ma'am." the young recruit replied politely. Élise moved off to the side to let her uncle see the alien ship. "Jesus" Epps breathed. That thing was huge!

"Well." he began speaking into the phone, "That's a ship alright. Do you think you could maneuver the satellite a bit closer to the ship and have it casually orbit around it, so we could get a better image of the ship?" he asked taking over the mouse and zooming in on the picture.

Epp's head dropped in defeat, luckily he had held onto the phone, when he didn't get the answer he was hoping for. "Alright. We'll just have to make do... No, it's alright, I understand. If it wasn't in the design, then it wasn't in the design-you can't help that...No, that's okay.

By the time you do that the ship may already begone...No, thank you-this helped us a lot more than you think...we will, you take care of yourselves too. Bye." Epps hung up the phone with an aggravated sigh and rubbed his shiny head frustrated.

"What did they say?" Élise asked placing a comforting hand on her uncle's shoulder. Epps sighed heavily,"The satellite that spotted the ship isn't controlled by remote like the newer ones. It can't move in any closer, but they offered to send one of the newer ones but it would take a month or two. We don't have that kind of time." he shook his head with a frown.

The Decpticons would already be here by then and the ship could be gone. Hell, maybe that was a Decepticon ship! They didn't know and they'd continue to remain clueless until Lennox came back with boss bot.

Élise contemplated for a minute before she grabbed the phone out of her uncle's hand and began dialing in numbers and pressing the call button. "Hey! What are you doing?" Epps cried trying to snatch the phone back but was unsuccessful.

"Hush your soul child, I'm trying to help." she said and turned her back to him. Epps sighed and shook his head, he returned to the monitors and began conversing with the men stationed at them.

The phone had rang three times already much to Élise's annoyance. "Come on Warper, I know you're home. You have no life." she grumbled. Warper, a.k.a. Marcell was a long time friend of hers. He was a teleporter. A self sustenance teleporter.

He had an incredible ability to not only teleport but to teleport and survive in the vacuum of space without any sort of protection or survival gear. He could also share that with another companion, as long as they remained in physical contact with each other- if the companion would lose physical contact with him...well I think you could guess what would happen.

"Hello?" Warper's tired voice finally answered. "_Il se agit de sacrément temps, _Marcell. What took you so long? I know you don't sleep in." she accused good naturedly. He yawned loudly from the other end of the line," Rough night last night, couldn't stay asleep for the life of me."Élise frowned a bit, well now she felt bad.

"Sorry to here that,_ chérie."_ she apologized. "Oh no, no. It's fine, not much you can do about it. Now what do you want? The only time you call is when you want something from me."he joked but there was some truth to his words.

"I won't even attempt to defend myself because it's true. Listen I need you to do your little teleporting thing and come to Diego Garcia for me." she instructed. "And why would I teleport all the way on the other side of the world for you?" he asked unimpressed.

"Because you _aime-moi."_ Marcell made an unconvincing sound," Annnddd~ we get to go up into space if you come." she quickly added. He hesitated, "...Alright, I'll come. But why do you need to get up into space?" he asked.

"Because there's an alien ship hanging out by the moon and I want to see if it's the good aliens or the bad ones." she answered honestly. He would surely come now. Marcell was an alien fanatic, he was in love with just the thought of them.

She could remember all the little alien toys he would get as gifts from his parents. All the t.v. shows and movie marathons they would watch together. The nights where they would take his telescope and foolishly try to find any alien ships lingering nearby.

And now that he's heard of an alien ship by their moon, he wouldn't miss up this opportunity. "I'm coming, I'll call you when I get here." he quickly hung up. "Well that was easy." Élise smirked.

"What was easy?" a deep baritone voice had asked from behind her. She turned and seen Optimus standing there in all his glory. "I made a call and got a friend to help, he can get us a closer view of the ship." she explained.

A small frown tugged on the corners of his metallic lips,"Élise I appreciate you doing this for us but-". She held up a hand and flashed a sad smile as she interrupted him in an apologetic but understanding tone,"But I basically need to keep my big mouth shut and go to you first, before I even ask my friends to help?

I can do that and I'm sorry, I should have asked first-this isn't my secret to go blabbering about. But technically, I never even mentioned you guys. I just said that there was an alien ship floating by the moon and I wanted to check it out.

Besides who is he going to tell? The police? His neighbors? Pshh, like his neighbors would really believe him and the cops would probably have him institutionalized...again. His only friends are mutants and they probably wouldn't give a damn, as long as they are left alone.

But that's not the point. The point is that I put your secret at risk and I'm sorry, I won't do it again" she promised. Optimus stared at her long and hard, contemplating her words. Élise frowned sadly at his silence. Did he not forgive her? She could understand where he was coming from but she was only trying to help. Damn her and her big mouth she had inherited from her mother.

"Optimus? Please?" she whimpered heart-broken as she stroked the large red and blue flamed leg. His hardened look completely shattered as she stared up at him with those big, pale blue-grey eyes.

He vented air heavily, and met her gaze, "Do you promise to come to me before getting help from your friends?" She nodded without a hesitation. "It's nothing personal Élise, it really isn't but-" she cut him off again by hugging his leg as best as she could.

"It's okay, I get it. You're only looking out for you, your men and everyone else here." she answered holding on a bit longer before backing away with a small smile. Optimus nodded relieved and bent down to her level, holding out his palm to her.

Élise stared at the inviting palm as if it were a foreign object. He was forgiving her already? Her silent question was answered when he carefully plucked her by the collar of her shirt and deposited her in his palm before standing up with a chuckle.

"So tell me, who is it that you contacted to help?" he asked as he slowly made his way to the monitors. "His name's Marcell but he goes by Warper." she informed. "Warper?" he echoed confusingly. What an odd designation for a human...or mutant, rather.

"Mhm. He's a teleporter and one of my childhood friends. Marcell can teleport anywhere, including space. He's immune to the effects of space and when you combine a self sustenance mutant teleporter and a mutant who can turn herself invisible - what do you get?" she asked. Optimus shrugged clueless.

"A closer view of that ship, that's what." she smirked.

Hey, thanks for the reads and reviews, it means a lot! Sorry for any spelling/grammar errors you found!

**Google Translations:**

**aime-moi** is french for:** love me**

**Oncle** is french for: **Uncle**

**Il se agit de sacrément temps** is french for:** It's about damn time**

**chérie** is french for: **sweetie**


	12. Aboard the ship

They were surrounded by darkness. A vast darkness. But the darkness was not the only thing that surrounded them. The darkness had been illuminated by a sparkling celestial body of stars and the light of the moon. Not too far from the moon had been the gigantic space ship, N.A.S.A.'s satellite had spotted.

"So uhh, we obviously aren't dealing with the like - little, creepy, green aliens armed with the alien-probe up your butt type of aliens, are we?"Marcell stared at the looming space ship in front of them with a dumbfounded look on his face.

Élise laughed as she tightened her grip around Marcell's neck,"No way dude. You should know by now that I don't mess around with the kiddie stuff. Go hard or go home son!". He frowned,"I think, I rather go home." he muttered unable to rip his eyes off the ship as he adjusted the woman on his back.

"What?! Nooo~ Not yet, besides I haven't even started filming yet. So grow into your kajones and wait a minute." she said pushing down on the corner of her glasses and smiled when she heard a click, followed by a beep.

The scientists back on base had thrown together a special pair of glasses that had the worlds smallest camera installed on it. When the camera was activated, it started recording everything the wearer saw and would stream it back to the monitors on base.

"Now, come on and get closer. I got us covered." Marcell moaned in displeasure but did as the woman said. The pair had safely circled the ship three times before Élise managed to convince him to bring them into the ship.

To say the ship was advanced was the understatement of the year, she didn't think it was humanly possible to even dream of having this type of technology on Earth.

They walked around for a while, well Marcell did- Élise was still riding on his back like a little child. Marcell was not as nearly as excited as the woman riding on his back.

Every object on this ship was clearly built for something a lot bigger than him, like the- 'able to squash him like a bug' type of big. Yes, he knew he could very easily get them out of trouble if they needed it.

Élise could too and technically she was, by keeping them both invisible and inaudible but he couldn't help but be a bit paranoid. He didn't like facing the unknown. At least with he knew something about the probe up your butt aliens.

Like; they depended on telepathy, with out it they can't render their target 'passive'. You use vitamin C to kill implanted alien hybrid embryos. They can't stand the smell of perfume. Incense from White sage makes them leave too. Wither the information was true or not was the true question.

As the rounded yet another corner they began to hear voices. It was a language neither could even hope to understand," Élise?" Marcell asked warily as he came to a stop. "Keep going darling, we're safe." she whispered gently into his ear.

He hesitantly continued on his way towards the voices and they were met with a door. Marcell kept walking as she phased them through the door but stopped in his tracks when a giant metal foot nearly crushed them both.

They looked up and seen a feminine bot with blue optics walking past, ignorant of their presence. She didn't have an armor on, she was just in her protoform. The feminine bot began speaking in her strange language to two other bots, both male and in their protoforms too. The two males were short, identical, 'chubby' in human terms and had blue optics... Autobots. They were Autobots! This was great, this was exactly what they needed!

Élise's excitement went away when she watched the feminine bot walk over to a large metal table and frown sadly. What was up there that made her look so sad? After messing with what ever was on the table for a few minutes, she had finally left it with a rather sad look on her metallic face.

The two other bots shared a guilty look before attempting to cheer her up from what Marcell and Élise could tell. She gave the two an appreciative smile and said something else before walking over to what looked like a metal couch and laying down.

The bots shared another look before walking over the table, gave a quick few words and then walked out of the room. The two mutants were curious to say the least. With out her needing to say anything, Marcell had teleported up onto the table and were surprised at what they saw.

It was another mech! However, it was a motionless mech. It couldn't be determined if he was friend or foe because his optics were a dull grey color but Élise was assuming he was an Autobot too.

He had been around Ironhide's height, was 'chubby' like the other two but he was the chubby muscular type. He had a beard made of coils and springs and had a lot of weapons surrounding him.

"Put me down Marcell." Élise ordered. He looked at her strangely but did as she told him to do, mindful to hang onto her wrist at least. She walked towards the metal giant and put a hand on his side, listening.

" Élise, what are you doing?" he whispered urgently. "Hush" she commanded sternly, "I'm trying to see if he's still alive or not." Marcell didn't understand how touching him would tell her if he was alive or not but he left her alone.

Élise focused intensely, trying to pick up even a hint of an electric pulse from the mech. After a few moments she had finally felt it, it was faint and weak. He was alive and trying to hang on. _  
><em>

She pulled Marcell closer to her, "I need you to teleport us up there." she instructed, leaving no room for argument. Marcell noticed the distinct tone of her voice and complied with out a word.

The familiar sight of welding marks met her eyes as she took in his damaged form. He had dents every where, one side of his jaw was unhinged and dangling slightly, his arm was hardly attached to his body and like she mentioned earlier, welding marks everywhere, especially on his chest.

He must have gotten into quite the squabble to get these injuries. Élise suddenly realized that dents, a detached limb and jaw would not kill a bot. Ratchet told her that those injuries were 'sparkling's ' play. They could survive without those, but they could not survive when they were constantly leaking energon.

Élise's eyes locked onto his chest, where the welding marks were. Tubes were probably torn in half and needed welding. Wires had probably become frayed like they had in Jazz and needed fixing.

Odds are that, the mech was leaking energon on the inside as well. It was the only thing she could come up with as to why he was laying here, half dead.

"How am I going to do this?" she whispered to herself, locking a hand into her golden curls. The female bot may have been simply trying to help her friend but she may have just possibly sealed his fate by welding his wounds together like this.

Where the hell was Ratchet when you needed him?

She groaned in aggravation and made a difficult decision, with Ratchet not here she'd need to take matters in her own hands. She walked down to his chest, with Marcell in toe, and got on her hands and knees.

She placed a finger on the largest welding mark and had electricity forming at her finger tip. She pushed down, cutting through the weakened metal and dragging her finger downwards until she didn't need to go any farther.

She had been right about everything she had supposed was wrong with him. As soon as the metal was opened, she was greeted with frayed wires and torn tubes, slowly dripping energon. The electricity had spread from her finger tip, to the rest of her hand. She would have to use the electricity to weld the tubes back together and then work on the wires.

With a quick prayer she got to work, fixing what she could with the knowledge of Ratchet's crash courses she got when she visited the yellow medic.

...

Marcell was flat on his stomach, hanging onto Élise's ankles as she worked deeper in the mech's frame. Hours have past by now and despite his constant probings to take a break, she hadn't.

He had to admit, as she worked he couldn't help but watch her, this alien's inner workings were quite fascinating and complex. So was Élise's rear end but he'd never say that out loud, she would kick his ass all the way to Earth and back.

Suddenly he heard movement coming from where that feminine bot had retired to. His heart skipped a beat as he seen the slender black form sit up and stretch. To his horror, she rose onto her feet and slowly began walking towards the metal table, where the three of them were.

"Élise!" Marcell's frightened call snapped Élise out of her working daze. "What is it?" she called up. "That girl robot is coming over here!" he explained and began pulling her and himself up.

Just as they both sat up they heard the bot call out in worry, outrage and confusion. They both froze for a moment, staring as she charged her way over. Why was her friends' wounds open?!

NO!

She couldn't interfere yet, Élise was so close to finishing the mech's repairs. She gathered a large ball of electricity in her hand and threw it as hard as she could when the bot had gotten into range.

The ball exploded on impact and electrocuted the female. She cried out in pain and crashed to the ground, jerking wildly as the electricity bounced around in her body. After a few moments she stilled and went quiet.

The defining silence was broken by Élise's guilty voice, "I really didn't want to do that, but she can't interfere. Not yet. I'm nearly done. If she interfere's now, she may mess everything up." Élise informed with a shake of her head.

She really did feel bad but she didn't have time for anyone to screw up her work on the mech.

"What are you going to do if the other two come back?" Marcell asked, not taking his eyes off the unmoving feminine bot. That had been a rather nasty shock, she went down so easily.

"The same thing, but hopefully I'll be done before that. Now come on, get me back down there." she said pulling him along with her, ignoring the way he had stared at the unconscious bot.

Another half hour past before Marcell was able to pull his friend back up on top of the mech with him. "Everything all fixed down there?" he asked wiping away some blue liquid stuff on her cheek.

"Yeah, I fixed everything to the best of my ability. Now, it's up to him if he wants to live." she replied giving him a thankful nod. She turned and welded his chest back closed before standing once more.

"Are you going to fix his arm and jaw too?" Marcell asked looking at the dangling arm and unhinged jaw. Before she had a chance to answer the sound of 'swooshing' doors hit their ear drums as the other two bots entered the room.

They seen their companion on the ground and immediately ran over, "You know I think he'll survive with out those being fixed don't you?" Élise asked a bit panicked as they fretted over her.

"Yup, let's go!" Marcell agreed and then teleported them out of there.

Hey! Thanks for the read, I appreciate you taking the time to read my story :). Sorry for any grammar or spelling errors you found.


	13. Down time with Optimus

"Élise, I thank you from the bottom of my spark. Not only did you find Autobots, but you helped secure the fate of one as well.

Hound would have surely passed on to the Well of Sparks if you haven't of interfered. Pass along my thanks to Marcell as well, when you get the chance." Optimus informed with a grateful smile.

Ratchet came up besides his leader with a nod of his head, "Optimus is right. Well done young one.

No disrespect to Arcee but her patch job was not helping Hound in the least bit, he wouldn't of lasted much longer had you not stepped in.I'm relieved to know you were listening during the crash courses."

Élise smiled smugly, "I told you I was listening Ratchet, and you were doubting my skills. Anyways, did you by any chance get communications up to them?" she asked.

"We did, I gave the coordinates to the island to Skidz and Mudflap. They'll be crash landing in the Indian Ocean and will be picked up by a naval ship." Optimus explained.

"Thank God" she murmured , "By the way, where is everyone?" base activity had calmed down greatly before she had even arrived back. "Not too long after your departure, three incoming signals were detected.

They were set to land in Colorado so I sent Sideswipe and Bluestreak to go greet the new comers. Then I had sent Ironhide to go with the cargo plane to pick up Bumblebee from Florida, where he is currently waiting.

Ratchet and I have obviously remained here to watch over Jazz and the base. There are still men on the monitors watching for anymore incoming signals and suspicious sightings.

Lennox has begun increasing the training with the soldiers, so that is where he and the majority of soldiers are. Another portion of the base is with the scientists, working on upgrading or building weapons.

Then the last portion of the human population on base is with the medical teams, learning the basic knowledge of first aid. Once they get an understanding of that, they will be advancing in their findings to learn how to deal with more serious injuries."

Élise whistled," Damn." she nodded impressed," Now what am I supposed to do? I'm done with my little space adventure." she asked feeling a bit useless. Optimus shared a look with Ratchet, "She will be coming with me, if that is alright.

You and the others seem to be very keen on taking up much of her time. The only one I do not see her with as often is Ironhide and that is because of Sideswipe stealing her away and they end up playing pranks on the poor old bot.

I also am aware that you two just _love_ your crash course lessons together but with the base as calm as it is now, I fear that this would be the only true... 'down time' I would get with Élise.

So, I would like to steal her away from you, if you do not mind?" Optimus asked but it had come out as more of an order.

A smug order. What was he implying?

Ratchet narrowed his optics at not only this, but at the bit of teasing and accusations in his speech as well.

However, he nodded a bit hesitantly nonetheless,"Very well. She's all yours Optimus." he agreed with a bit of a sigh. Optimus smirked in victory and knelt down to offer his palm.

She walked on and plopped down, hugging her knees to her chest, "Later Ratchet!" she called as Optimus turned and began walking away.

Ratchet simply raised a servo in acknowledgement and turned the opposite way, heading towards his med bay.

When the doors closed behind the duo, Élise couldn't help the giggle that escaped past her lips. Optimus looked down at her amused, "What is so funny?" She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and laid flat on her back, resting her hands behind her head.

"I don't think Ratchet appreciated you stealing me away" she pointed out with a smirk. He returned the smirk with a mischievous gleam to his optics,"Oh I know. That is why I did it."

"Whaatt~? Optimus Prime being devious? Well I thought I'd never see the day. I like how you basically ordered him as well, very naughty on your part Optimus. Abusing your power to get what you want." she scolded playfully.

He looked down at her smiling form with a look full of mock shock,"Me? Abusing my power as a Prime? Why I'd never! It would never even cross my processor to do so. And even if I did, it would be called asserting my power- not abusing it." he retorted smartly.

Élise barked out a laugh and shook her head," What ever helps you recharge at night, Optimus." Nothing was said for the next minutes, they were just enjoying being in each others company.

"Do you want me to give you the works?" Élise suddenly asked. Optimus looked at her confused,"Pardon me?" he asked.

"The works" she repeated and sat up," You know... do you want me to give you a wash, buff out some of the scratches in your paint, give you a new paint job while I'm at it and I'll give you a wax after the paint is dried too." she offered.

Optimus looked down at his paint and grimanced, perhaps he did need...' the works'. "I would very much appreciate that, thank you." he nodded.

She smiled and nodded," No problem, but um can we go to my room first? I want to change before we do this." she requested.

This was a nice shirt, she had no interest in getting it wet unless it was being washed.

...

"Okay Optimus! You ready?" Élise asked walking outside as she tied back her curly locks. Optimus looked up from the equipment he had been checking over to make sure he didn't forget anything and was a bit surprised to say the least.

He thought she would change into... 'bumming' clothes as the humans called it, not into her under garments!

"Hey, you okay Optimus?" she asked concerned as he would not look in her direction. "Élise..Why are you in your undergarments?" he asked in a strained voice.

She frowned and cocked an eye brow. undergarments? What was he-? Ohhh. Now she got it, he thought her bikini was her bra and underwear!

Élise laughed and walked over to the chivalrous leader,"I think your confused Big guy. This is my swim suit, a bikini. Not my bra and underwear." she laughed.

Her bikini top was one of those push up tops, with the wire in it. The top was red with white leaves and matching red bottoms.

"Swim suit? Bikini?" he echoed finally able to meet her gaze. "Yeah." she laughed, "I can see how you thought that though so it's okay.

The only difference between a bikini and undergarments is that bikinis are made for water, for getting wet. Undergarments are not unless you're washing them." she explained.

A look of understanding flashed across his face before he transformed down in to his alt mode, a Peterbilt 379 semi-truck.

" My apologies for the misunderstanding then." His voice filtered through the radio. Élise giggled and patted his hood in a comforting way, "It's alright Optimus, you didn't know." She said easily and began running the water so it would be warm for him.

...

Élise couldn't believe it. Optimus. Optimus Prime. Leader of the Autobots was _purring_. Élise smiled as she continued to gently scrub away at the dirt on his hood.

Optimus couldn't remember a time where he felt this good. Her gentle scrubbing felt wonderful as she worked on washing away the dirt from his frame.

He was so lost in the bliss that he only faintly realized he had begun to purr and occasionally shiver as her hands trailed over him, but he ignored it- he was going to savor every moment of this!

After all the offending dirt had finally been removed, Élise hopped off his hood and hosed him down for the last time. Now she had to towel dry him off and then work on the scratches.

" Okay Big guy, I'm going to get you dried off and then I'm going to start buffing out those scratches. Sound good?" She got a powerful revve of his engine as a response.

She laughed and nodded, "Good. Now come on, we'll do this a little closer to the base." She said throwing the sponges into the bucket and grabbing the rest of the washing supplies brought out here.

She straightened and walked back towards the base, with an obedient semi truck following after her.

...

" Okay, you're all dried and your scratches are buffed out. You ready for the paint?" She asked cracking her sore back.

Maybe she should have taken more breaks than she had, all that slouching over to get at the scratches lower to the ground had been a killer on her back.

" I am, when you are." He replied easily and even a bit excited. He's never been pampered like this before and he was enjoying it!

Élise looked over the paints he had gotten as she worked on setting up the brushes. " No purring or shivering this time okay?

I need you to be really still." She instructed as she put on a mask that covered her nose and mouth, then the gloves and then the apron.

" What?" He asked lost. He didn't purr or shiver...did he? "When I was washing you. You started purring and you had shivered a few times too." She explained.

Optimus racked through his memory banks, trying to find said event. To his horror he did distinctly remember displaying the pleasure he felt when she was washing him.

His frame felt like it was on fire. His cooling fans kick into over drive as they tried to cool him down.

"I mean don't be embarrassed about it. I thought it was pretty funny. I must have done a pretty good job then huh? " Élise asked smiling behind the mask.

He was silent for a few moments, " Yes, you did." he finally admitted sheepishly. Élise laughed and patted his smoothed out door," Well don't worry. It'll be a secret between us, okay?" She asked.

"Yes, I think I would like that very much." He said relieved. " We have a deal then. Now stay still for me, I refuse to screw up your design." She said as she began to paint over the old paint.

...

" Well? What do you think?" Élise asked hopefully. She had finally finished the painting, let it sit and dry and then waxed him.

He was finally done and looked magnificent in her eyes. Every inch of him sparkled and shined as the light reflected off his armor.

" This is amazing Élise, thank you." Optimus breathed. He honestly didn't think he looked this good since back on Cybertron and even then it had been a while since he looked so amazing.

She let out a sigh of relief and smiled in victory. "No problem Optimus. Now no rough housing with the others. I busted my ass getting you all handsome and shiny. I don't want it ruined, understand?" She asked resting her hands on her hips.

Optimus chuckled,"Yes dear" he replied sarcastically but nodded seriously. She smiled gratefully and brought her hair back down.

She ruffled it a bit and wore the rubber band on her wrist, so she wouldn't lose it. Optimus had knelt over to pick her up when he heard a wolf whistle reach his audios.

He straightened and turned around curiously, who in the world had done that?

Hey! Thank you for the reads and reviews, I appreciate it :D. Sorry for any spelling/grammar errors you found.


	14. Jazz's awake and poor Flareup

A small yellow bot Élise had never seen before stood in the doorway with Ironhide. Bluestreak may have been the most adorable thing she's ever seen but this bot was by far the cutest thing she ever laid eyes on.

He had cute little yellow door wings on his back, and the brightest baby blue eyes she's ever seen. _"Ooo Sweet_ _baby__ Jesus that man is looking fine as ever!"_ was that a clip from a radio station?

Optimus chuckled and walked over to the small yellow bot, clapping him on the shoulder, "It's good to see you again too Bumblebee. We have much to catch up on. Thank you for bringing him Ironhide" Optimus nodded to the weapons specialist.

Ironhide returned the nod with his own and a hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips as he placed a servo on the yellow bots head, "It was no problem, Prime. Gave me and the youngling a chance to catch up, seeing as he does not seem to know how to work his comm system to leave a message every now and again." he finished giving Bumblebee a look.

_"But-but Dad!"_ There was that radio clip again, it was coming from him... wasn't it? "Hmm. Ironhide does have a point Bumblebee. Do you not miss us?" Optimus inquired.

The yellow bot furiously shook his head but before another clip could be played Ironhide had interrupted,"Did you forget that not all of us have the freedoms of remaining back in the States to watch over a charge and his girlfriend? Do you think it gives you a right to not attempt contact with one of us?"

The yellow bot shook his head vigorously again and began clicking and whirling desperately as he began to explain himself. In the middle of his clicking, whirling and beeping Optimus held up a hand to silence the young bot. "Relax Bumblebee, Ironhide and I were just kidding, there were no true meanings behind our words." Optimus assured.

Bumblebee sighed in relief and wiped off imaginary sweat from his forehead much to the amusement of Élise and Optimus. Ironhide however, was not the least bit amused.

"Your words may have meant nothing Prime, but mine did. I basically raised him from the moment he was found as a sparkling. I think I- if not at least one of us deserves a message now and again." he growled glaring down at the smaller bot who had shrunk in on himself from guilt.

"You were not the only one who raised Bumblebee, Ironhide. I had helped as well, " Optimus stepped in,"but Bumblebee is grown now. He is still young yes, and he should have left a message." Bumblebee seemed to shrink in on himself even more if it was possible.

Élise felt her heart break a little as she watched the yellow bot; his wings were pinned down, he was messing with his servos nervously and his baby blue optics were filled with guilt as he absorbed every word the two bots thrown at him and each other.

"But he knows how to take care of himself. He's proven himself multiple times that he is a capable warrior. He's not a sparkling anymore."Optimus finished with a shake of his head.

Ironhide snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, "I will give you the credit you deserve of helping to raise Bumblebee, Prime. But ultimately it was me and Chromia who fed him, kept him warm, recharged with him, played with him and taught him everything he knows today. He could be as old as Ratchet for all I care... He. leaves. a. message." he growled with finality.

Optimus sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of his nose with a shake of his head, "Fine. He will leave a message from now on, do you understand Bumblebee?...Bumblebee?" Optimus asked looking around the room.

Bumblebee was gone.

Well, to Optimus and Ironhide he was gone. During the argument, Élise had made her way over to the yellow bot unnoticed and turned them both invisible and inaudible.

Bumblebee waved his servo in front of a confused Optimus, he was right here! He tried it with Ironhide as well, he even began clicking and whirling but he hadn't receive an acknowledgement.

"I wouldn't waste my time doing that, he can't see or hear you. Neither of them can." Élise informed. Bumblebee jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar human voice and looked down.

Élise offered a smile and waved kindly. Bumblebee waved back a bit slowly, who was this woman? "I'm Élise Cross, Epp's niece, local mutant and Autobot spy" she informed with a dramatic bow.

_"Local...mutant?...Autobot...spy?" _She had a feeling that this was his true voice instead of the bits of radio clips he had been playing before. "That's right. Local mutant and current Autobot spy at your service! I can phase through matter, turn invisible, I have control over electricity and I can render myself completely inaudible.

I was told that you guys needed a spy, so my uncle volunteered me for the job. After kicking his ass for not even asking me how I felt about using my powers for the military, I settled in. I already have two infiltration missions under my belt and a hell of a reputation around base for my pranks with Sideswipe." she stated proudly.

The sound of applause reached her ears as Bumblebee clapped his hands along with the clip. "_Well howdy there little lady! My name's...the bumblebees...wonderful to meet you!" _the multiple clips played before he held out his finger to her.

Élise laughed and shook his finger," It's nice to meet you too Bumble-" she was suddenly cut off by the sound of a door slamming open. Epps stood in the doorway a bit winded. "Epps? What is the matter?" Optimus asked forgetting about the missing yellow bot. "J-Jazz...h-he's waking up!" he panted with a smile.

In Élise's shock, she had dropped their cover. "Jazz... is up?" Ironhide repeated hopefully. He nodded toward the weapons specialist with a smile, "He's going to be. But only you guys know.

Ratchet doesn't want everyone flooding the med bay, he only wants Optimus and Élise in there for the first few minutes. Then when they leave, the rest of us can visit him." Epps reported, having caught his breath back.

Élise perked up and ran for the wall the doorway rested in, "Let's go Optimus!" she yelled slipping through the wall and running down the hall, making her way towards the med bay and leaving the occupants of the room in her dust.

Everyone left in the room stared at the spot she had phased through in amazement. Optimus, Ironhide and Epps have seen her do this plenty of times around base but it still amazed them. Bumblebee who had never saw her powers in action was frozen in shock and awe. D-did she really just phase **through** the wall?

Epps seemed to be the first to snap out of it,"Man. I'm her uncle and I have no idea how many times I've seen her do that, but I don't think I'll ever get used to it." he chuckled.

...

"I'm here!" Élise's unexpected call had startled Ratchet and he nearly dropped the energon cube in his hand. "For the love of Primus girl, don't do that! Nearly gave me a spark attack." he muttered clutching at his rapidly beating spark.

"Sorry." she apologized with a sheepish smile. "I'm excited is all, Uncle Epps told us that Jazz is waking up. Is it true?" she asked jumping up and down in a familiar fashion as she had before, when she had first tried to see Jazz from the ground.

Ratchet set down his cube and caught the woman in mid-air, bringing her up onto his shoulder and placing her there. From up there, she could easily see Jazz's silver form.

"Yes, what Epps has said is true - Jazz should be bound to wake up in just a few minutes. Now be still, I don't want you falling off." he lightly scolded before taking a sip of his energon.

Élise stared at the mysterious blue liquid with curiosity, "Have you ever thought about making it synthetic?" she asked randomly. Ratchet raised an eye ridge at the woman,"What?"he asked. "The energon" she supplied, nodding to the drink in his servo.

"I heard you, Ironhide and Optimus all talking about how the energon you have left in the reserves won't last forever, especially with the amounts you had to pour back into Jazz. And then Hound is going to need some poured into him when he gets here too. So have you ever thought about trying to create a synthetic form of energon?" she suggested.

Ratchet nodded slowly,"Yes, I have. I considered it many times but I do not have the materials or knowledge on how to do it with out the necessities. If we had WheelJack here, then perhaps it could be worked out. But, we don't". he vented air heavily as he shook his head.

Élise frowned in sympathy," Suppose it's time I actually step it up and start doing my job right, huh?" she asked sadly. "What are you talking about?" Ratchet asked confusingly, she was doing her job just fine. What was she talking about?

" A spy does not simply just wait around to be given missions, they go out and discover the information before it is even requested of them. I haven't been doing that, and now you guys are suffering for it." she frowned, glaring down at the white tiled floor.

Ratchet's face hardened a bit. Did she honestly think that the energon shortage was her fault?! "Élise. We are short of energon because of our own mistakes. You have nothing to do with-" Ratchet was cut off by the sound of a familiar groan.

"Mmm. O-oh m-man. W-wha' happ'ned?" a tired voice asked from the table. Élise froze and whipped her head up, it was Jazz wasn't it? Ratchet stood and walked over to the metal table briskly.

He looked down and seen the visor begin to glow a bit brighter by the second until it had finally settled on a healthy level of brightness. "You seem to have managed to escaped the clutches of death once again, Jazz. Congratulations." Ratchet smirked.

Jazz felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards." Thanks Ratch. How have ya doin' ?" he asked weakly. "Hmm. That is something I should be asking seeing as I am not the one eluding death...but I have been better as of recently" he replied throwing the woman on his shoulder a meaningful look.

Jazz noticed the look and seen the young woman on his shoulder. Jazz carefully tipped his helm to the side as he took her in,"Whose the pretty lil' lady?" he asked. Élise blushed a bit at the comment but smiled nonetheless.

"I'm Élise Cross. I helped Ratchet fix you up" she informed gently. Jazz smiled and managed to lift and hold a servo over his spark, "A beautiful creäture such as yourself helpin' little ol' me? I'm honored."

Élise giggled, he was quite the charmer wasn't he? Ratchet however was not as amused, "Not even three minutes back online and you're already flirting with a female." he grumbled with an irritated roll of his optics.

"I'm afraid my audios are up to full strength yet Ratch, can't hear ya when ya grumble like that." Jazz teased. Ratchet growled in warning before turning to the woman on his shoulder, "Crash course Élise, pay attention." he ordered as he began to show her all the tests to run and questions to ask a patient after they've woken up from surgery.

Ratchet had hoped it would be a simple crash course as they always had but with Jazz's constant flirting and Élise's giggling, it didn't go as planned. No matter how hard she had tried to hold in her laughter it was no use, the giggles would still escape past her lips.

...

"Élise...is a mutant?" Jazz repeated slowly . The crash course with Élise had ended just as Optimus walked into the room. She left to give them some privacy but before she left, Optimus ordered her to head to the Autobot Rec room - where the new comers would be.

Then she was to stay there with them until Arcee, Skidz and Mudflap were escorted there and all of them would wait for him to appear and greet them. Optimus nodded, "Yes, she is a mutant who specializes in infiltration. And quite the healer in the making with all the crash courses Ratchet gives her." he informed.

"Interestin'...very interestin'. Has she gotten ya'll any information so far?" Jazz asked curiously. Optimus nodded," Yes. She's discovered Decepticon information right from Megatron himself and we are currently preparing for it.

She has also infiltrated the _Empress_ with the help of another friend; where they found Arcee, Skidz, Mudflap and Hound- whose life has been saved because of her crash course medical training.

Had she left him with Arcee's patch job, Hound would be offline by now instead of making his way down to Earth with the others." he mentioned. Jazz cracked a smile," Well would ya look at that, the lil' beauty really is a life saver then. What was the-" a yawn had racked over his frame.

Optimus chuckled and stood,"I believe this would be the time where I take my leave. I will fill you in more when you're rested." Ratchet who had hung back stepped forward and ran a quick scan over the saboteur," Good call Prime, Jazz needs this time to rest. You can fill him in more in the morning."

"But-" he protested weakly but Ratchet was not having any of that,"Enough! Either you recharge on your own or I help you get some recharge" he warned waving a wrench threateningly.

Jazz flinched and attempted to scoot away,"You wouldn't hit a bot who just escaped death would you?" he asked weakly. "Try me" Ratchet growled. "Okay okay! Jus' stop wavin' that thing around, how's a mech supposed to get some recharge when you're wavin wrenches in the air like that?" Jazz complained before powering down.

...

"So it's Chromia, Elita-One and Flareup. But Arcee, Chromia and Elita-One are the sisters, right?" Élise asked looking up at the blue, pink and red bots in front of her. The three femmes all stood on one wheel; Chromia was dark blue and Ironhides' sparkmate.

Elita-One was rose pink and Optimus' sparkmate. Flareup was red but didn't have a sparkmate yet. "That's correct little one, but where is our missing sister? We were told she would be here." Elita-One informed.

"Oh she will! Optimus got the coördinates up to them a while ago. They were set to crash land in the Indian Ocean and be picked up by a Naval ship but they should be here anytime now." Élise assured confidently.

Flareup rolled closer to the young mutant and bent down to her level," Tell me...Élise." she tested out her name cautiously, and nodded in satisfactory when it rolled off her metallic tongue easily. " You were answering Elita about their sister but you kept referring to Arcee as 'they'. Who else is arriving with her?" she asked.

"Arcee was up on the ship with three other bots- Skidz, Mudflap and Hound, sooo~ they're coming too." she supplied easily. Flareup perked up at this bit of information and turned to her fellow wheeled bots with a mischievous look on her face,"Did you hear that femmes? Arcee has been on a ship with three mechs all by herself."

Chromia laughed at the suggestion,"Ohhh~ you know she must have done _something _with at least one of them. She wouldn't miss an opportunity like that." Elita-One gasped and turned on the blue sister,"Chromia! Do not speak about Arcee in such a lecherous way like that!"

Flareup rolled her optics and came to Chromias' defense, "Oh come on Elita you know she probably did. She's been known to have more than one mech in the berth and if not then she's been known to grab a mech that's sure to give her the time of her life, and Hound is definitely one of those mechs despite his appearance."

"You make it sound like my sister is a berth hoping pleasure bot" Elita growled unhappily. Chromia scoffed, gaining the rosettes' attention, "For the love of Primus Elita, get the pole out of your tailpipe.

You know Flareup only spoke of the truth, Arcee was a little berth hopper back on Cybertron. And from what I heard from the mechs, she definitely did not disappoint."Chromia smirked.

Wait a minute, how exactly did Flareup know that about Hound? "Um, hey Flareup?" Élise called. Flareup cast her glowing blue optics down on her, "Yes?" she asked. "How exactly would you know that about Hound? Did you perhaps, spend a night or two with Hound?" Élise asked wiggling her eyebrows suggestively with a laugh.

Chromia busted out laughing before nudging Flareup a bit harshly on her shoulder. "Yes, Flareup. How**exactly** did you get that kind of information on Hound?" Flareup felt the energon rush to her cheek plates as she wheeled back from the laughing woman and blue bot. Even Elita could not hide her amusement to the red femme.

"W-well you...you know...bots talk, word gets around!" she protested weakly. "I don't think word is the only thing that's getting around Flareup."Élise teased. Flareups cooling fans had kicked into over drive by now.

Not only because of the embarrassment or because of this whole situation she had managed to get herself into, but it was the memories of the nights her and Hound had spent together had began replaying in her processor.

"Sweet Primus, listen to those fans work! You're thinking about your times in the berth with Hound aren't you?!" Elita surprisingly laughed loudly. "N-No! I'm not! It's just really hot on this planet, I need time to adjust to the temperature!" Flareup argued but it fell deaf on the ears of the laughing occupants of the room.

Hey! Thanks for the reads and reviews, I appreciate it :D! Sorry for grammar/spelling errors you found.


	15. Meeting

"Autobots it gives me great pleasure to see you all safe and well. Though I wish it was a more pleasurable time for you to arrive. I will not try and 'beat around the bush' with this, but Decepticon reinforcements are well on their way." Optimus announced.

An uneasy murmur broke out upon the new comers. "Well, how long do we have until the Decepticons show up?" Elita-One asked above the murmur, silencing the crowd.

Optimus vented as he met his sparkmate's gaze, "Not long I'm afraid." he cast a glace to Élise, she was sitting off to the side as she quietly paid attention to the meeting.

"Élise has told us that we have a month until they arrive but that was reported a few weeks ago. " he informed gravely. "Hold up, How does the lil human even know?" Skidz asked, getting nods of agreement from the rest of the new comers.

"Mutant" Élise and those who knew the truth chorused. "Say what now?" Mudflap asked a bit startled at the correction."I'm a mutant, not a human" Elise corrected with a shake of her head. "I know that they're bound to come in a matter of weeks because I was the one who got into their base and spied on them.

Megatron said it himself, Decepticon reinforcements are coming in one month. He has Barricade searching for this base right now but so far he's coming up empty handed. That won't last long though, if Barricade does not find the base by the time the month is up- then I'm sure some other Decepticon will." she promised.

"Which brings up the matter if she will hide the base or not if the scanners pick up Decepticon signals approaching." Optimus finished. Before Élise could open her mouth to reply, Chromia's angry cry sounded first, "Hide? **Hide?!** **I **do** not hide **from** any bot! **Why was this even put into consideration?

We should be out there fighting any Decepticon that shows themselves!" she raged. Optimus simply nodded in understanding, he had expected this from her. "I understand your anger Chromia but that is something we cannot afford. We do not know how many are arriving or where they will be arriving at.

If we went to try and find them then we could very well be walking into an ambush and I will not allow that to happen. Not to mention that Hound and Jazz are still recovering from their injuries." Optimus pointed out.

This had gotten Arcee's attention, she rolled forward with concern plain as day on her face plates, "Wait Jazz too? What's wrong with Jazz?"she asked, fearing for her friends' health.

Sideswipe rolled up beside her and placed a comforting servo on the dark pink femme's shoulder, " Jazz was ripped in half by Megatron in battle during his first year of being on this planet. Ratchet was able to sort of save him. Before Élise arrived, Jazz was hardly hanging on by a thread.

But with her help, Ratchet managed to get Jazz back to us and away from the Well of Sparks. Jazz has only just woken up and I don't think he'll be ready to move for a while - Hound too.

What Optimus has planned is our best option," he paused and turned to face the rest of the bots, "You all know me. I'm hardly one to stand by and let Decepticons wander around while we sit back and watch.

But what Prime has planned is for the best, if we go in there guns blazing we could be mowed down, one by one. If I'm going to be offlined by the hands of the Decepticons then I want it to be the hardest thing they've ever done, not the easiest" he declared loudly and turned to Chromia and addressing her with a softer tone,"Isn't that how you would want to go out? Knowing you gave them one hell of a fight?" he asked.

Chromia's optics widened a bit as they took in the silver swords master. He had changed from the last time she had seen him, he had been much like her- he frequently volunteered himself for patrols, just for the possibility to see if the patrol would turn into a fight if they crossed any Decepticons.

He was a force to be reckoned with on the battle field, he would often be seen zipping around the field taking on any opponent in his sight. He would also be seen riding on the backs of the Decepticon seekers, dishing out some 'jet judo'.

No matter how big or how outmatched he was, he'd never back away from a fight and often needed to be physically pulled away. But that was not the mech she seen standing before him. He was older, level headed and a lot wiser compared to his younger days. This planet changed him.

Chromia broke out of her stupor and suddenly smirked, meeting his gaze evenly, "Well it seems I've been mistaken. This bot in front of me is not the young Sideswipe I know. The Sideswipe I knew, would be with me on this matter.

You're not the same bot you once were on Cybertron. You have let this planet and its' inhabitants change you Sideswipe and I'm not sure if I like it, you've gotten level headed on me." she chuckled.

Sideswipe smiled and chuckled along with her, like the rest of the room's occupants. "Perhaps I have, and I'm not to sure if I'm liking this change my self but for now I'm going with it. It's been keeping me alive so far" he settled with a shrug of his shoulders.

"You're 'level headed-ness' is not what's keeping you alive fragger, it's those wheels of yours. Do not think that I have forgotten about what you've done to me in the past." Ironhide suddenly growled.

Sideswipes face brightened at the memories, "You didn't like the paint jobs I gave you? I tried pink, purple, and even pink with glitter but nothing seems to satisfy you. You're a picky mech Ironhide" he tutted throwing a smile to Élise, who was cracking up from her seat on the side.

"My paint job is fine! I did not need you sabotaging the training room **repeatedly **to explode out those horrid colors you picked out!" Ironhide argued stepping closer to the silver bot.

Sideswipe laughed at the mechs' anger, much like the rest of the occupants of the room had. He began skillfully skating backwards with out taking his optics off Ironhide as he maneuvered himself behind Optimus, who was struggling himself to hide his amusement.

"You just have bad taste" Sideswipe dismissed with a flip of his wrist. Ironhide looked like he was ready to rip Sideswipe's head off his shoulders but before anything else could be said, Optimus wisely intervened.

"You two can discuss Ironhide's paint job later. Right now we have more pressing matter to attend too." he turned his head towards Élise, who had just managed to collect herself.

"Élise. Do you think you could hide the base-possibly even the island if the Decepticons were to approach our location?" he questioned seriously. It seems as it was fated for Élise to not get the chance to speak during this meeting because she was cut off once again by another voice.

"Optimus, I will tell you the same thing as I told Bluestreak a few days ago." Ratchet began as he walked into the room, "Of course she can hide the base and even the island if she wanted too.

The question you should be asking her if she can** physically **manage the strain to hide an entire island filled with sand, vegetation, animals, a military base, humans and us. It would be enormous strain on anyone, including Élise."

Élise subconsciously flinched, well damn. He certainly hit the nail on the head now didn't he? She suddenly felt multiple holes being burned into her side, she looked up and seen a sea of glowing blue eyes on her.

"Could you do it Élise?" Bluestreak asked with a hopeful flutter of his door wings. She swallowed and found out that her hands were the most interesting thing in the world.

"I could hide the base..." she hesitantly answered. When she was greeted with silence, she continued on. "I could hide the island too." she added.

More silence.

"But...I would need to be watched, Ratchet was right about the strain. I have only done something like this once before and it didn't end up pretty for me." she finished with a sad shake of her head.

"Then we will not ask you to do this" Optimus stated with finality. "We will need to make a new plan of action if we are to be discovered." he added turning back to his Autobots.

"No! I can do it!" Élise insisted standing up from her seat and taking a few steps forward. Ratchet shook his head with a frown, "No, Élise. The strain in theory would kill you and we won't ask you of that."

Optimus nodded his head in agreement but Élise had shook hers in disagreement, "Then I will die helping out a cause!" she argued. "A cause that was not yours to begin with. Too many lives have been unfairly taken because of us, whither it be civilian or soldier.

I cannot control those who meet our kind while serving, therefore I cannot stop them from being transferred over into the N.E.S.T division. But I can make sure your life will not be taken away by our war." Optimus said determined.

"It's not yours to protect!" Élise cried, "Would you rather have the hunters kill me?! I rather die from the strain of hiding you guys than end up in their hands. Because I'll tell you right now that they won't make it a swift and easy kill.

They'll drag it out until they can't anymore and then they'll kill me. I don't want to die like that Optimus. Please, let me help! I never said I'd die from the strain, all I said was that I'd need to be watched and if that's the case then it'll work out fine!

The island will be invisible anyways, Ratchet can be right by my side- watching over me. Please,Optimus!" she begged. Her speech may have had some lies in it but the majority of what she said was the truth, she rather die from strain than in the hands of the hunters. Optimus and Élise had then engaged in a stare down. Battle of the wills. Glowing blue vs Pale blue-grey.

"Hunters? What is she talking about?" Élise faintly heard Flareup whisper questionably. "Élise's kind is plagued by 'mutant hunters'. They do what their name suggests, they hunt mutants and capture them, even killing them essentially.

I am not sure why they do this though, perhaps it is because the human government has put laws in action that prevents mutant experimentation and those who disobey the laws are to be punished accordingly.

Élise had a run in with them before and they nearly got her but the hunter was stopped before he could fully capture her. She was put in the hospital soon after the attack. As far as I know she hasn't had another run in with them like that since, but I could be wrong." Ironhide supplied.

Optimus suddenly broke away with a deep sigh and turned away from the woman and his Autobots, making his way to the door. "Ratchet is to be with you during the entire thing. No exceptions." he muttered unhappily.

A sad smile fluttered across her face as she watched the red and blue mech leave. He was mad at her no doubt, but he'd get over it. She was Élise! It was hard to not forgive her.

Hey! Thanks for the reads and reviews, I appreciate it :D! Sorry for grammar/spelling errors you found.


	16. Back to Nebraska

"Ohhh~ Papa Hound! Are you up?!" Elise sang skipping into the med bay cheerfully.

It had been a week from the last meeting. Optimus had forgiven her but there was still a bit of anger in his optics when he seen her. He truly did not approve of her doing this but it was her life. She had the right to choose what she did with it and what she would die for.

Hound lifted his head from the medical berth and smiled warmly down at the young woman who had grown rather fondly on him. She had been like the daughter he never had. "Good Mornin' Elise!" he greeted.

"How are you doing big guy? You feeling okay?" she asked, stepping onto his open hand as he had leaned over and offered it. "Doing just fine, little darlin'. There's no need to worry about me." he assured as he set her down on his chest and resting his head back onto the berth.

"Heeyyy~! Why aren't ya askin' bout me!?" a familiar voice whined from a couple berths away. Élise laughed as she turned in Jazz's direction, "Hey Jazz! How are you doing today?" she asked.

"There ya go! I would be a lot better if I could see tha' beautiful face of yours!" he replied cheekily. She giggled and shook her head in amusement as Hound's engine grumbled unhappily. " Jazz" Hound growled ," If you don't stop that flirtin' with her, Imma shove a grenade down yer throat." he threatened.

Élise barked out a laugh at the threat, "Damn Hound! You went pretty far with that one. What's wrong with Jazz doing a bit of flirting? I don't mind it, if that's what your worried about."

"He's jus' jealous 'cause he ain't got any game like I do." Jazz teased from his berth. "I ain't jealous of that! And I do have game, a lot more than you youngling! I just don't throw it around to any female that's living and breathing unlike you." Hound accused.

"HEY! Watch yer self Hound. I don't throw 'round my gaming skills to just **any** female that's livin' and breathin'. I use it on the beautiful ones who mean somethin' to me." Jazz sniffed.

" Hey, hey! Knock it off you two. Calm down, it's not even 8 in the morning and you guys are already being too loud... and aww thank you Jazz!" Élise cooed to the saboteur before turning to Hound with a mischievous smile on her face.

It unnerved him, what did she want?

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Hound questioned uneasily. The smile stretched even bigger as she regarded the big green mech, "Soo~ This 'game' you say you have...did you use it on Flareup to get her in the berth?"

Hound stared at her mouth agape and optics unwavering. Ahhh! He did! "Ya got lil' Flare in the berth?!" Jazz asked in surprise but he shook his head and fired off another question instead of waiting for a reply. "Wait, where did ya here this from Élise?" Jazz asked quickly.

Élise smirked, "From the femme herself of course. Flareup, Chromia, Elita-One and I were all talking about how Arcee was a little berth hopper on Cybertron and Flareup let it slip that she spent some nights with Hound" she informed happily.

She turned back to Hound with a wicked grin," So I'm taking it that you two **did** hook up. Did you really 'rock her world' ? Or was she just being generous and just saying that so your mechly pride wouldn't get hurt?"

Energon had rushed to his cheek plates and turned a small green area a light blue color instead. "Aww! Oh my God look! He's blushing!" she squealed excitingly as she jumped in place and quickly flapped her hands up and down, unable to contain her excitement.

Once he had gotten a hold of himself, Hound gave the squealing woman a look, "Now, you knock that off. There will be none of that, what happens between me and her is none of your business. You go to her if you want to know so bad, I'm not saying anything." he huffed.

"Soo, she was just being generous" Jazz answered flippantly. Élise gasped and covered her mouth to hide the smile that immediately appeared as soon as the words escaped his lips.

"Jazz! That was mean!" she scolded, doing her hardest to keep a level voice. Hound growled and glared in the saboteur's direction, "What the hell did you just say fragger?!" Hound bellowed, clearly not as amused as the young woman was.

"I said-" Jazz was cut off by the sounds of the door swooshing open. "Will both of you shut up? Sweet Primus, it's not even 8 o clock yet and you two act as if you're still in daycare. I could hear you from all the way down the hall" Ratchet grumbled as he walked into the med bay.

Élise perked up at the sight of her favorite medic,"Hi Ratchet!" she called happily. He nodded to her in greeting, "Hello Élise." he returned less enthusiastically than the woman.

Élise frowned, he usually offered her a small smile at the least- even if he was in a bad mood. She hopped off Hound's chest, landed on the berth he was laying on and walked to the edge of the metallic bed before sitting down.

"Something wrong Ratch?" Jazz asked, noticing the medics' strange attitude as well. "Yes, but there's no need to concern yourselves with it. Things will sort themselves out soon enough...I hope." he added more to himself than to the others.

Hound, forgetting about his previous anger, sat himself up and met Ratchet's stressed gaze, "Ratchet, we've known each other for a long time. You can talk to me, you can talk to all of us." Hound insisted motioning to Élise and Jazz too.

Ratchet vented air heavily but a small smile graced his lips," I am well aware of this, thank you Hound. But if you must know, part of my problem is about certain bot ignoring direct orders from his medic to **lay down** in his berth until told otherwise." he growled and whipped around, chucking a wrench at Hound.

"Ow!" Hound yelped as the wrench hit its' mark. Hound grimaced as he rubbed his now dented helm," Now that was just plain mean" he groaned in pain. Élise felt bad for Hound she really did, but that was too funny in her eyes. She didn't know if Jazz felt bad though.

She had her doubts seeing as the mech had energon tears rolling down his cheeks from laughing so hard."H-Hound...are...are y-y-you... okay?" she asked in between laughs.

"Yeaahh~ I'm fine." he grumbled unhappily. Ratchet walked over to his berth, much to the chagrin of Hound and stood next to it, "Good. Now,** lay** down!" Ratchet demanded and forcefully pushed the green mech onto his back.

"For the love of Primus mech, don't man handle me like that, I'm delicate and should be treated as such." Hound protested as he crossed his arms over his chest. Ratchet scoffed and raised an eye ridge, "Delicate huh?" he questioned. Hound nodded but it was put to a stop by another wrench hitting him in the head.

"Ow! Now why did you go and do that? I didn't do anything!" he whined rubbing the sore and dented area. "Toughen up! We do not have time for delicate beings as yourself" Ratchet smirked and grabbed Élise, holding her close to his chest, before walking away towards the back room-where Jazz used to be.

"So, you going to tell me what's wrong? Hound wasn't lying, you can talk to me. You know that right?" she asked softly, placing a hand on his yellow chest. Ratchet's face softened as he nodded, "Yes, I know. But I'm afraid this is an issue we have already discussed before."

She frowned in confusion," We've talked about a lot of things. You're going to have to be more specific I'm afraid." she said gently. Ratchet sighed and shook his head sadly,"The energon Élise. The energon. We have even less than we suspected after healing Hound.

We need to get more, whither it be from the Decepticons or wither we make it synthetic. It won't matter where or how we get it. We just need it. Optimus is putting energon rations into place starting at noon, energon will be distributed every 8 hours from here on out."

Élise froze in shock. They were so low in energon that they needed to ration it? That would not work, not for long anyways - there were too many of them!

"Ratchet" she started off shakily, "That's not going to work. There are too many of you guys now, the energon won't last that long. The rations would have to be small, just enough to keep you guys running."

He nodded gravely,"That's the idea. Until we can find another source of energon, it's a sacrifice we're going to have to make." Élise frowned, so they were starving. That's what she understood. If the Decepticons didn't take them out, then hunger would.

What was she going to do?

She supposed she could go back to Nebraska and check the Decepticon base there for energon. It would be a start. Not to mention that it'd be a lot better than sitting back and watching her friends starve.

"Ratchet, put me down. I'm going to go talk to my Uncle and Lennox for a quick minute." she instructed. Ratchet gave her a strange look but did as she told him to do.

"I'll be back" she promised before running off.

...

"They're starving guys, **starving.** We need to do something! We can't just sit back and watch them waste away!" Élise exclaimed. Lennox and her Uncle had nodded in agreement, " Your right Élise, there's no doubt about that. But what are we going to do? I don't know what we could do to help." Epps frowned, feeling helpless.

"Can't we talk to the guys down in the lab and have them try and create something that could act as a substitute?" Lennox suggested hopefully. Now that was a good idea. It was unlikely that they could, but it was worth a shot and they didn't have a lot of any other ideas.

"You guys can try that, but I'm heading back to the States." Élise informed. "What? What are you going back to the States for?" Epps asked, worried about his niece. "I never really searched that Decepticon base like I should have." she said with a shake of her head.

"There's a possibility that they could still be using the base and I could check it for energon. Or at least try and find out where they keep theirs or what they're using as a substitute." she supplied.

"Makes sense, even they have to be low...or at least getting there. She's bound to find something out there, set up a plane ride for her while I talk to the guys down in the lab?" Lennox asked and walked off before he got a reply.

"Not like he would know if I set the plane ride up or not. He walked away! Talk about rude." Epps complained with a pout. Élise giggled and nudged her uncle,"Shut up and set up that plane ride for me already.

You can complain about him later, but not to me. I have to get ready, I'll listen to your complaints later though okay?" she promised and walked away herself to get ready for her journey.

...

"Where or where could the Decepticon base be?~ Oh where oh where could it be?~" Élise sang to herself as she walked, deeper and deeper into the rural Nebraskan area. Esteban and Conner had dropped her off a few miles back and said that they would wait for her there and would leave as soon as she was finished.

After a good 10 more minutes of walking, she finally spotted the abandoned warehouse. "There you are" she whispered as she went into 'infiltration' mode with a smirk.

She entered the base and seen it was exactly how she remembered it. Instead of just zooming through the base like she had before, she actually took the time to scope out each floor level, leaving no stone unturned in her search for the energon.

Unfortunately her search had been in vain for the most part, but by the time she was two floors underground...she got lucky. She phased through yet another wall and nearly squealed in excitement.

There, in the corner of the dimly lite room had been a metal crate that had light blue streaks of light escaping from it. A light blue hue like that? It had to be energon! She quickly approached the crate and opened it.

Her face was illuminated by the light blue hue as she grinned in satisfactory. It was! It was energon! Now all she had to do was get it back to Esteban and Conner. That was a problem.

There was no way she was moving this thing by herself. Maybe she should have told the bots her plan to come back to Nebraska? They could have easily helped her with this.

A sudden alarm made her heart stop. It's blaring wails were consistent and came from across the hall in a room she had yet to check. Against her better judgement she left the energon and raced across the hall and into the room from where the alarm was coming from.

With out a second thought, she slammed her fist against the crumbling wall, sending an electric pulse throughout the entire room and shorting out the alarm into silence.

She breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around. The room had been much like the rest of the warehouse but there were difference. For one, there was a large monitor about a yard away from her.

On it's screen had been a large target symbol - the big center dot and then the multiple rings around it. Near the outermost ring had been one solo dot approaching the center dot.

Off in the bottom corner of the screen had been Cybertronian numbers but she only faintly recognized them as such, she couldn't read them. Was someone coming? Who was it? Friend or foe?

Her silent questions had been answered when the phone she had been given began going off. She quickly silenced the thing and seen it was a message from Esteban.

_Esteban: Incoming Autobot signature, he'll land about half a mile away from your location but he's not alone. We got readings of two Decepticon signatures following right behind him. Finish up what you need to finish up and let's get out of here!_

Élise frowned in confusion, there weren't two decepticon signa- oh there they were. She sighed heavily and rubbed at her face in exasperation.

Well shit.

Hey! Thanks for the read and reviews :D. Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.


	17. End of the Nebraskan journey

**A/N:** **Hey, so I decided that I wanted the dialogue to be changed a bit right at the very end of the last chapter so instead of going back and changing it, I'll just show you the new dialogue right here. **

**_Esteban: __Approaching__ Autobot signature, he's about half a mile away from your location but he's not alone. We got readings of two Decepticon signatures following right behind him. Finish up what you need to finish up and let's get out of here!_**

**Annnddd~ that was it basically. Okay continue on! ^.^**

Élise couldn't help but be a bit confused at what see saw. She understood the main concept of 3 Cybertronians duking it out, but why did the Autobot already have armor on?

He must have already spent some time on Earth, but why wasn't he detected before?

He was a tall mech with blue and gold armor, two detachable golden swords- one of which he was currently using to fight off the Decepticons, a little goatee made of coils and glowing blue optics like all other Autobots. But what she found pretty interesting about this mech, was that he looked a lot like a samurai.

His sudden cry of pain snapped her out of her daze. One of the Decepticons had managed to clip him on his side. She needed to do something, she couldn't keep hiding behind the tree.

She leapt from her hiding spot and charged towards one of the Decepticons that was hanging back while his friend continued to battle the blue and golden bot.

The sound of cannons powering up gave her an extra boost of speed. The red opticed mech raised his arm and lined up a shot that would hit the Autobot right in the head.

She gathered a ball of energy in her hand and lunged forward. She slammed the electricity into the Decepticons' foot and scrambled back to get some distance between her and the metallic being.

The decepticon screamed bloody murder as the electricity coursed through his body. His screams had stopped the fight between his friend and the Autobot as they both turned around to see what had caused the other Decepticon so much agony.

Was he kidding her right now? This is his chance to take the other one out!

" Don't stand there and watch, kill the other one!" Élise yelled motioning to the stunned Decepticon he had been battling. The samurai like mech broke his gaze from the Decepticon who had collapsed and turned his curious gaze to her.

" Oh my God, for the love of-" she gathered another ball of electricity and threw it at the Decepticon who had finally broken out of his stupor and charged towards her with a foreign battle cry.

The events after had been like it was set on replay. The Decepticon screamed in pain, collapsed onto the ground and went offline, just like his friend. Élise huffed in relief and walked up to the closest Decepticon, sending another burst of electricity through his head - killing him.

She repeated the process with the other Decepticon and when she was finished she looked up at the multi colored bot with a slightly annoyed look as he sheathed his sword on his back.

" Spicy beans dude, you should have taken the opportunity to kill the one next to you when you had the if he would have turned on you instead?" She asked resting her hands on her hips.

A look of confusion filled his face as he looked at her strangely.

Did he not understand her? "Can you understand me?" She asked slowly. His expression hadn't changed much, but she could tell he was trying his best to decipher her words.

Well this is just fan-freaking-tastic. She wasn't even supposed to meet an Autobot or any Decepticons, all she was supposed to do was try and find the energon...The energon! She had to go back and make sure it was still there! " Come on, follow me!" She said frantically motioning the bot to follow her.

His optics merely narrowed in suspicion as he watched her try to get him to follow her. She groaned in frustration and quickly drew the Autobot symbol in the dirt, hoping it would get his metal butt in gear.

His optics widened at the symbol and watched as she quickly rubbed the symbol out before motioning him to follow her again. Thankfully he did and he followed the smaller being back to the base.

He was very wary as he followed her in but with her constant probings to follow her she managed to get him back the room with the crate of energon in it fairly quickly.

The blue and gold mechs' optics widened in curiosity when he seen the glowing crate. While she rushed over to it, he more cautious with his movements. She motioned him over and opened the crate, letting the light blue hue illuminate a good part of the room.

He finally reached the crate and a gasping noise escaped past his lips. She smiled at the bot as he looked into the crate unbelievingly. He stared into the crate a little longer before he closed it and looked at her curiously, clearly wondering how in the world she had found this.

She simply shook her head with a small smile. She patted the metal crate a few times before pointing at him and motioned for him to follow her. Confusion filled his optics as he cautiously took a few steps towards her but stopped when she shook her head.Élise went back and attempted to pull the crate herself but was unsuccessful.

So she looked up at him and patted the crate again, pointed at him and motioned for him to follow her. A look of understanding and a bit of doubt flashed across his face. He let loose a short puff of air before sliding the crate forward and tipped it on its side before working the crate into his grasp.

He lifted the crate with a grunt and motioned for Élise to get going. After making sure he had it she quickly maneuvered her way around him and through the base. Once they were outside Élise pulled out the phone and called Esteban.

The co pilot answered on the third ring,

_" I really hope you're on your way back back to the plane, Optimus and Lennox are on mine and Conner's asses right now. They aren't very happy with the fact that we are still in the area, even if the Decepticon signals disappeared._

_ Optimus is even more angry because no one one told him that you were going back to the Decepticon base with no protection_."

_" Tell them both to suck on a lollipop. I got what I came for and more."_ She said casting a look over her shoulder to make sure the Samurai Autobot was still behind her as she wove her way through the trees and vegetation.

"_ What are you talking about?_ "

Élise smirked, _" You think bringing back an Autobot and energon would make things better for me? "_

_" You found an Autobot?! **And** energon?!"_

_"Mhm. Got the big guy carrying the energon crate right now. We're heading for the plane now. He's a pretty blue and golden color. Has a little goatee made of coils, has two golden swords sheathed on his back and he looks so much like a samurai- it's crazy. So don't shoot if you see him first. We're about 10 minutes away still but we'll be there soon."_

_" Alright, I'll send word back to Optimus and Lennox. Make sure you two are careful on your way back, this is still a Decepticon hotspot and you never know when any more are going to show up."_

_"We will,don't worry."_

_"With you Élise, there's always a reason to worry."_

_"Hey! I resent that!" _

_" I know, hahaha! Anyways get your butts in gear and get here, bye now!"_

Élise huffed as he hung up on her and continued along the way, picking up the pace a bit once Esteban's warning had rang through her head.

...

" Élise, what you did was outright dangerous! What if you were discovered?! Or worse, even hurt?"

For once it wasn't Optimus yelling at her, but Ratchet instead. Élise rolled her eyes in exasperation, he was always on her like this. Even when she pulled her pranks with Sideswipe, he would be on her. Always nagging her that she could have gotten hurt if her powers weren't there to help her. He was always worrying about everyone else but himself.

"But I wasn't and what do you think would have happened if they did manage to get their hands on me? Do you think that they'd be able to hang on for me that long? Hell no! I'd be out of their grasp and hauling ass out of there in a heart beat." She argued.

Ratchet groaned and shook his head in frustration," That's not the point Élise, you rely too much on your powers. What if something happens and you can't use your powers to escape? Then what?"

Élise frowned, she did not rely on her powers that much. No matter how much it looked like she did. She's been through that situation before and thanks to the other mutants she's met before and the training she got from when she was little- she knew how to escape from even the most high tech security place with out her powers.

"I haven't been trained to just know how to control my powers Ratchet. I've been trained on how to escape the most high tech places with out my powers too. It's something my parents made sure to do before I left home.

They were a lot like you, always thinking about that one moment where I wouldn't be able to use my powers. They've had me trained ever since I was a little girl Ratchet. Money, place or time was never an issue for them.

They gladly dropped everything they were doing to get me to the training from other mutants. So don't worry about me, don't even worry about my powers not being able to save me. If it happens, then it happens.

But know that I will **always** find a way to escape, I haven't met a cage that could hold me yet. Instead about worrying about me, you should be worrying about yourself. When is the last time you ever took a break?" she asked with a sad shake of her head.

Ratchet sighed and rubbed his forehead in annoyance. " It's been too long, I know that much. But I know I won't be getting one anytime soon, I have to check Drift-" So that was his name- Drift...she liked it, it fit him.

"- For any injuries, malfunctions and viruses. Then I have to install the correct data in him, he's learned a completely different language from the internet. I suspect that he landed somewhere in Japan and downloaded their language. That's why he couldn't understand you when you tried speaking to him earlier." Ratchet clarified.

Élise nodded her head in understanding, that made perfect sense to her. She suddenly looked up with a small smile,"Did you see the energon we brought back?" she asked softly.

Ratchet's face softened considerably. Yes, he had seen the result of her little side quest to Nebraska. He couldn't believe that she went out of her way to try and successfully track down that energon the way she did.

He had also heard word that Lennox had went down to the men in the laboratory and talked them into attempting to try and create a substitute for their energon. The news had softened his spark, humans were a lot of things and sentimental was definitely a big one.

"Yes, I did. Thank you Élise, I will have to be sure to thank Lennox as well. That was very sentimental of the both of you to do and I truthfully appreciate it." he smiled. She smiled and nodded, "Any time big guy. So, how long will that much energon last you guys?" she asked, hoping that her trip was worth it.

He chuckled a bit sadly as he mulled it over," What was brought back, was a good amount. I'd say if we all consumed it at a normal pace it would only last about 4 weeks maybe less.

So the energon rations will not be lifted by much. We still have to consume it every 8 hours to be on the safe side but on every 8th hour, we can consume a little more than before. It will be a lot better than what we started out with, I will tell you that much." he assured.

Élise frowned a bit at the news. Okay, so her side quest had been a bit of a bust. The point of it had been to find enough energon to lift the rationing completely but now that she thought it over, she doubted that she would have been able to do that with only one search and retrieve mission.

But there would be others without a doubt. It would clearly be a bit until she embarked on another energon quest, she wanted everything to generally calm down before she went back out there.

And it's not like she would let anyone stop her either, she was Élise Cross! Daughter of Armani and Amury Cross. Niece of Robert Epps! Seasoned mutant extraordinaire!

...

Well maybe her mother could, her mother scared the crap out of her.

Hey! Thanks for the read and reviews :D. Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found.


	18. Makeovers and Mario Kart Rage

"Hey Élise! Do you know who did the boss bot's paint job?" Arcee asked curiously as she rolled up to the lone figure of the tiny woman who was laying in one of the human sized couches in the Autobot rec room.

Élise looked up to the dark pink bot and smiled, "That would be me." she responded as she straightened herself up on the couch. The femme's glowing blue optics widened in surprise, "You did?" she asked incredulously and knelt down to the woman's height. Élise nodded proudly,"Mhm. I even buffed out all his scratches and gave him a wax too, which I'll need to do again now that you guys are back from battle." she added with a small frown.

Arcee looked down a bit nervously before meeting Élise's pale gaze again, "Well, do you think you could do the same for me?" she asked shyly. Elise smiled warmly and nodded, "Of course, when do you want to do it?" she asked.

"Sometime today would be nice, if that's alright with you… Optimus looked really good before the battle by the way, you did a great job on him. You can even ask Elita-One and she'll back it up." she said with a sly smile, " The night after the meeting, she could hardly keep her hands off of him when night time rolled around."

Élise's eyes widened in surprise, "Is that what all that noise was?! Oh my God!" she chuckled and ruffled her hair a bit before continuing on, "Dude, I seriously could not figure out what those noises were, we could hear them from all the way on human side of the base!" She was unfortunately not exaggerating. The night after the meeting was held, all these strange groans, scrapings and moans could be heard coming from the Autobot side of the hangar.

A lot of the humans were woken up by it, they thought something was wrong with the structure of the base, like something was going to give in. It was either that or something was trying to get it in but the alarms weren't going off and the scanners weren't picking up anything so that option was ruled out. The option of the base collapsing in on its' self was still a probability but it was doubted that, that was the source of the noises.

The Autobots help build this place, they made it as safe as it could possibly be. The base has never been attacked either, so there wasn't a possibility of faulty repair jobs. Lennox and some of the others were tempted to cross over to the other side of the hangar to ask one of the bots about it but Élise waved them off, if the Autobots were not up from all the strange noises then they were fine.

She ushered the humans back into their rooms and advised them to just block it out and go back to sleep. "You could hear all of that?" Arcee asked surprised. "Mhm, we thought there was something wrong with the base structure or something was trying to get into the base. We had no idea what was going on, so I just told everyone to go back to bed and block it out as best as they could." Élise shrugged with an awkward smile.

Arcee chuckled and shook her helm in amusement, "One of the downsides of not being Cybertronian, I suppose." she mused. Élise gave her a funny look, "And what exactly do you mean by that?" she asked, book marking her page and standing up. Arcee retreated back a bit and thought over her words carefully. She hoped she didn't offend the smaller woman in anyway with her earlier statement, it was not her intention too if she had.

"Well, we can turn off of audio receptors completely. Meaning it's a lot easier to block out things that we do not want to hear. No noise gets through what so ever when we do this, but seeing as you and the others cannot do that..." she trailed off with a small frown. Élise wouldn't lie, she was feeling pretty envious and maybe a bit defensive about what her wheeled friend had said.

Yes, being able to turn off her hearing completely would be a bonus... a big one for the nights where the bots started getting frisky with each other. But it wasn't completely a downside of not being Cybertronian, there was nothing wrong with being a human or mutant. She rather hear muffled noises of what ever she's blocking out then nothing at all. You could easily miss something important if something were to happen and your hearing was turned off completely.

Élise rolled her eyes, "And seeing as we cannot do that, we get to hear the ever so lovely noise of the Boss bot and his femme getting it on. Yeah, yeah don't rub it in."she said and made a shooing motion with her hand, "Now come on, let's get you started on your new makeover" Élise and Arcee were walking/rolling to the giant metal door together, when Arcee suddenly stopped. "I hope I didn't offend you earlier, and I'm sorry if I did." she apologized when she received a questioning look.

Élise cracked a small smile, "It's alright Arcee and thank you for apologizing. I won't lie, I was a bit jelly of you and the others but there was no real harm done." she assured, giving a soft pat to her wheel. A look of relief washed over her face plates but a confused one soon took over, "What's wrong Arcee?"Élise asked concerned.

Arcee gave her a quick once over before answering, "I thought you were a mutant. Not a sweet, clear, semisolid, somewhat elastic spread or preserve made from fruit juice and sugar boiled to a thick consistency." she frowned. Élise's pale eyes grew wide and blinked multiple times, trying to comprehend what she had just said to her.

"Umm, what are you talking about exactly?"Élise asked. " You said you were "jelly", but earlier you said that you were a mutant. I'm afraid I don't understand, how can you be jelly and a mutant?" Arcee questioned with a small frown. Élise smiled, the bots really needed to learn not to take everything they heard literally, "I was just kidding Arcee, I'm not really jelly. In my opinion, it's simply what the more proud people say instead of out right saying that they're jealous" she laughed.

A light blush dusted across her cheek plates, "Ohhhh, so it was a um...figure of your speech then?" Arcee asked. Élise nodded wordlessly, still grinning up at the femme. "Ahh, well then...good to know." Arcee finished awkwardly, " Well, I think I've embarrassed myself enough for today, let's get going shall we?" she asked, scooping up her companion with out waiting for a reply and skated out of the room, heading towards the same area Élise had washed Optimus at.

.0.o.0.o

Élise let out a small sigh as the endless bantering between the younger bots, *cough cough* The twins and Sideswipe *cough cough* began to get on her nerves. She had no idea how they even found out she was giving Arcee a new paint job along with the rest of the works. When she asked Arcee if she had told anyone, she shook her head and was just as clueless and a bit irritated as Élise.

After a few more minutes of listening to the trio, Arcee's patience snapped and she chucked a nearby rock at them. The rock hit its' target and caused one of them to yelp in pain, allowing Élise to let a small smiled slip onto her lips as she continued to work on buffing out the last of the femme's scratches. "Would you three mute it already?! For Primus' sake how did you even find out what we were doing? I didn't tell anyone where or what I was doing." she frowned irritably.

" 'Ey man, not cool!" Mudflap protested rubbing his now dented helm, "An' besides, you're not the only one who noticed the boss bots' fancy look before, we wanna look like that too!" he proclaimed. Arcee vented air and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Because that so answers my question" she said dully. "We asked Optimus how did he look so good and he ratted the lil' shawty out, he said she was responsible for making him look so good." Skidz supplied for the femme.

"And quite frankly I think it's a bit rude to give Optimus and Arcee a make over and not the rest of us," Sideswipe pipped in and then paused,"...or at least not me. By all means frag the rest of them, but come on Élise, I thought we were closer than that!" Sideswipe pouted, popping up next to the working woman. A bit too close if you ask Arcee.

Élise smiled at the silver bot shyly before continuing her work on the femme's foot, "We are Sideswipe, but I just didn't know that you'd want one. I didn't think it'd be such a big deal." she shrugged. Arcee gave the silver mech an annoyed look before shoving him away from them, "It's **not** a big deal. Don't let them bully you into giving them a make over Élise." she advised shooting the mechs a rather hostile look.

Sideswipe frowned and shot the dark pink femme a glare, "We aren't bullying her into doing anything." he frowned. "Yeah! Besides, how do we know that ya didn't bully yo way into getting a new make over?" Mudflap joined in. By this time Élise had set the buffing equipment down and was putting on all the protective gear on, so she wouldn't get paint on her clothes or skin.

It was becoming clear that she had no intention of trying to diffuse this situation, and would let them dish it out by their selves. To be honest she had no idea they would be so...passionate about how they looked.

"You don't know, but what does it matter to you? All that does matter is that Élise knows that I asked her. I didn't pressure her into giving me a make over." Arcee ground out. "Is that what your trippin' over? All ya had to do was say that!" Skidz pointed out and turned his optics onto the curly haired woman. "Yo Élise!" he suddenly called loudly, startling the poor girl.

"Yes, Skidz?"she asked after a quick moment and began opening up the dark pink paint she was going to use on Arcee. " Ya mind if we get a make over too?" he asked. Élise shrugged and straightened up to relieve some pressure from her back, "I guess I don't mind but you guys are going to have to wait a bit. I'm going to get Arcee painted, dried and then wax her. But you can help me make this go by faster if you guys go get more soap, wax and paint so when it's your turn, we can just get started real quick. Deal?" she offered.

The three mechs exchanged looks with each other and nodded, sending collective smug looks to the fuming dark pink femme before leaving to get the supplies they would need. Once they were gone Arcee vented out air harshly, disturbing Élise's curly locks beneath Arcee's much bigger form. "Those two idiots don't even have their own personal alt modes yet, their an ice cream truck for Primus' sake! And Sideswipe knows very well that he can give himself a make over and make it look just as good as yours, I don't know what he thinks he's doing." she grumbled.

Élise didn't know exactly how to respond to the uncharacteristic hostility of the femme, so she gave a small shrug, "Well...maybe the twins want to look like a sexy ice cream truck and maybe Sideswipe just doesn't want to do it himself? The hell if I know, stay still by the way." she added as she began applying the new dark pink paint to her frame. Arcee scoffed as softly as she could, "Oh please, that mech was always giving himself makeovers back on Cybertron. It was him and that damn brother of his, even during the war they were always keeping up their appearances on the ships or in the bases. Primus knows why..." she mumbled.

"He has a brother?" Élise asked surprised, Sideswipe never mentioned having a brother before. "That's right, his name is Sunstreaker. He was an artist, that's where I say Sideswipe picked up some of his artistic talent from but he was no where near as talented as Sunstreaker. Sunstreaker was one of the best artists around, he took requests from all around Cybertron and even had the high class bots buying his art." she informed.

Élise nodded, "That's pretty impressive, but why doesn't Sideswipe ever talk about his brother? I'd say that'd be worth talking about." she pointed out. Arcee frowned a bit, "Because they were separated during the escape from Cybertron and he doesn't know if Sunstreaker is still alive. It's been a very, very, very long time since Sideswipe's had any type of communication with him and thinking of his long lost brother hurts him - physically and mentally." she finished softly.

Élise felt her heart break a bit, she felt nothing but sympathy for the swords' master now. She didn't blame him for not talking about his brother, if she was in his shoes she wouldn't do it either.

.o.0.o.0

"Alright Arcee, you're all done now." Élise smiled satisfied. Arcee stared down at her frame in shock, she looked amazing! "Sweet Primus Élise, this is amazing!" she breathed, "where did you learn how to do this?" she asked meeting the smaller woman's gaze in awe. Élise shrugged sheepishly, "You can learn a lot from the internet, all it takes is a bit of practice." she admitted.

"Well, very nice job nonetheless. Thank you." she smiled gratefully. Élise returned the smile, "No problem, Arcee." she nodded and then covered her mouth as a small yawn worked its' way past her lips. "Now, all I have to do is do it another three times," she frowned a bit as another yawn racked through her body, "how fun." she finished.

"You do know that you can always tell them "no" right? Or, to at least come back a different day, you don't have to run yourself into the ground for them." Arcee mentioned sympathetically. Élise looked up in surprise but then nodded, "Oh I know but it's okay, the sooner I get them done the better. I rather not have them bugging me for the rest of the week over this." she said walking over to the hose and began running the water, so it'd be warm for which ever mech would be here first.

"You mind getting them for me?" she asked Arcee, "I don't care who it is, just one of them needs to get here." Élise said with a quick glance to her wrist watch, it was eleven thirty in the morning. Her work on Arcee had started at nine thirty, so it had taken two hours exactly to finish up with her. Now that Élise did the math, she figured she wouldn't be done until four thirty in the afternoon if everything went smoothly.

Arcee nodded a bit hesitantly and thanked her again before turning around and walking off to find one of the mechs scheduled for a makeover. "And now I wait." Élise said to herself once the femme was out of sight and plopped down on to her rear end.

.0.o.0.o.0

"Will you stay still Sideswipe?!" Élise laughed lightly as she gently scrubbed at the silver plating of the swords' master. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly as he shivered and squirmed under her fingers again, "I can't help that you have magic fingers woman! You're doing it on purpose!" he accused. Her jaw dropped a little at the accusation, "Me?! I'm not doing anything!".

That had been the third time she's heard that today, Skidz and Mudflap had said and reacted the same way Sideswipe was reacting at the moment. Though, Sideswipe was a bit better at controlling his actions than the twins, those two would not stop squirming for all that was holy. She was surprised when she was finally finished them in a little over two hours, around four-fifty she was done if she remembered correctly.

"But fine, if you're so against my "magic fingers", " she rolled her eyes at the phrase, "then I guess you are clean enough." she shrugged and stepped away from the silver bot, missing the way his frame sagged in disappointment, and turned on the hose once more. Once the water was warm she began to spray him down thoroughly. "Thank you for doing this." he said soft enough for her to still hear over the roar of the water.

"You're welcome, Sideswipe." she smiled and turned off the water once she was done, wrapping up the hose while she was over there as well. "You're still going at it?" a new voice spoke up. Élise turned and seen Lennox walking towards her with a sympathetic smile and a plate of food in the other. "Hey Lennox." she greeted kindly. "Hey." he nodded to her and nodded to the soaking mech too, "Hello Sideswipe."

Sideswipe returned the greeting politely and listened in as the man and woman conversed. "Yeah, I'm still going at it. I would have been done a bit earlier but the twins gave me a bit of trouble." she said answering his earlier question and stealing a bit of food at the same time. "But how did you know I was out here in the first place?" she asked chewing around the french fries she had stolen.

"You can thank the twins for that, partially Arcee too. Everyone seen how nice they looked and asked who got them all prettied up. **Arcee** said you had done it but **the twins** had referred to you as the pretty girl with curly hair and magical fingers." he chuckled giving her a look. Élise raised her eye brows and blushed a little, " Well alrighty then" she chuckled lightly and turned back to the patiently waiting Sideswipe.

She picked up some towels laying off to the side in her hands and began towel drying the mech. "But everyone was right, they look really nice. Even Ironhide looked impressed, even though he won't admit it." he added with a small smile. "Of course he won't." Élise chuckled, working her way around Sideswipe's frame. "You may have a problem though once you get back into the base though...especially in the med bay." Lennox warned picking up some more fries and munching on them.

"Oh? And why is that?" she asked without pausing. "The twins had the great idea of strutting around the med bay-" "Oohh~ you have got to be kidding me!" Élise cut him off loudly with a groan, banging her head into the silver frame in exasperation. Of course they'd go into the med bay! That's were Jazz was and no doubt she'd get an earful the next time she step foot in there.

"Oh man, I can already hear Jazz's complaining now." Sideswipe said amused, his frame shaking with laughter, "You're in for it now Élise." he teased. Élise groaned, "No kidding" she sighed loudly and continued drying him off. Lennox huffed amused, " You should of heard him as soon as he found out. Pitched the biggest fit I've ever seen. I don't even think Anabelle's pitched a fit that bad before." he said with a fond smile at the thought of his one year old daughter back at home with his wife, Sarah.

"Well, there's no way I'm visiting the med bay anytime soon. Looks like I'm going to be hiding out with you for a while." she said, patting Sideswipe's side. "Fine with me." he chuckled in response. She tossed the towels away and for the final time that day, put on the protective paint gear. Once everything was on she walked off to the side and got his silver paint ready.

"Is anyone else pitching a fit like Jazz?" she questioned warily and carried over the readied paint to Sideswipe. Lennox thought about it for a moment but shook his head. "No, not that I know of anyways. I'm sure they're a bit envious but they won't bug you to get them all prettied up, they know you've been out here for a while and want to give you a break. And if they didn't know that it was you doing all of this in the first place, Arcee would have made it clear to them anyways. She gave them quite the ear full about how hard you've been working and if she even heard about one of them asking you for a makeover, she'd rip them apart and use their spare parts for decorations on her wall."

Sideswipe shivered slightly, he knew the dark pink warrior was serious and would act on her threat. "Gotta love Arcee" Élise joked lightly before crouching down and reminding Sideswipe not to move until she was done painting him. "Bucket of sunshine she is." Lennox added and finished off the fries on his plate. "So, what have you been up to today?" she asked. "Besides watching the twins strut around base, listen to Arcee give the bots an ear full and watch Jazz pitch a fit? ... Nothing much." he shrugged.

"You are really living life on the edge aren't you Lennox?" Élise joked. "Because you have so much more room to talk." he shot back with a smile. "I hope you choke on what ever food is left on your plate." she retaliated with a light laugh. Lennox laughed and gave the woman a light shove to her side with his foot, sending a squawking Élise onto her butt. "Crouch much?" he asked rhetorically but quickly spun and fled back to the base when she shot up and took a swipe at him.

"Good bye Lennox!" she called loudly and returned to applying the silver paint to Sideswipe, both chuckling when they heard a faint 'Bye' returned back.

0.o.0.o.0.o

"Thank you again Élise, I know this probably wasn't what you had planned for today." Sideswipe said a bit guiltily as he rolled into base with her resting in his hand, held close to his chest. She smiled tiredly, "Oh it's fine. I wasn't sure what I was going to do today after I finished reading but I sure did figure it out quickly now didn't I?" she asked with a small smirk.

He returned the smirk, "Yeah, I guess ya did," he paused," Where do you want to go now? I'll take you there." he offered kindly. "The cafeteria please, I'm going to run in there and grab some food. Then..." she paused and thought about what she wanted to do next, it was only eight pm and she was somewhat tired but had no desire to sleep yet.

She shrugged, "And I guess take me where ever you want to go, I don't care." Sideswipe frowned lightly, "Aren't you tired? You don't want to sleep?" he questioned as he rolled them towards the cafeteria. "Yeah I'm tired but I don't want to go to sleep yet, so you get the honor of entertaining me until I'm ready to fall asleep." she smiled.

He returned it and nodded, "You honor me my lady...I promise not to let you down!" he exclaimed dramatically and kicked it into another gear, racing down the halls as fast as his wheels would carry them.

0.o.0.o.0.o

"Nooo! Stop, stop, stop, stop!" Élise shrieked in rage. Deep laughs surrounded her but she ignored them and focused at the task at hand. She, Sideswipe and Bumblebee were all playing Mario Cart Eight Online together after she finished half of her sloppy joe from the cafeteria and she was currently getting screwed over. She a.k.a Daisy had been in first place but had been shot out of it by a blue shell thanks to Sideswipe a.k.a. Wario and then Bumblebee a.k.a Toad had bumped her off the map.

She was now in third place and the computer characters were catching up to her rather quickly. "No,no,no,no,no,no,no! COME ON, MOVE YOUR ASS DAISY!" She yelled at her character when Yoshi and Luigi passed her up. The surrounding bots ( all the bots excepts for Ratchet, Jazz and Hound) were highly amused by the raging woman desperately trying to get back into fourth place at least. "What kind of bullshit is this, I went from first to fifth." she mumbled angrily as she stood up and took a few steps closer to the giant T.V. to focus better.

"Red shell Élise" Optimus pointed out after a few moments of silence. "What?!" she shrieked and began spazzing out as she did indeed see the little warning blinking on the bottom of her screen. "No!" she wailed as the red shell finally hit her and to her dismay, three characters ( Mario, Morton and Donkey Kong) suddenly speed past her, " WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?!" She yelled incredulously and whipped around, throwing the remote into the couch but turned away before she could watch it bounce back from the force of the throw.

She collapsed onto her knees, curled up into a ball and interlocked her hands behind her head, not saying anything to the questioning bots around her. A good portion of the bots were in hysterics and very few could form proper sentences. After she silently fumed to herself for a few moments, she picked herself off the floor and walked away from them and sat in an empty love chair, putting her head in her hands.

"I'm so done" she mumbled to herself ignoring the seemingly ever lasting laughter around her. "Perhaps it would be wise if Élise-chan took a break so she can finish her dinner and calm down." Drift advised, highly amused as he gently picked her up and carried her over to a near by over sized table and set her down before retrieving her food and placed it in front of her.

"Thanks Drift." she mumbled lazily picking up the messy sandwich and taking a bite. The Samurai calmly walked back over to the gaming area as the femmes quickly came over to comfort the pouting woman. "Sideswipe give me a controller, I will take Élise-chan's place." Drift instructed to a somewhat calmer Sideswipe. He looked surprised but did as he was told, handing over a controller that easily fit into his servos.

After a few moments the tables had turned during the next race and it was Sideswipe spewing Cybertronian and English curses as Drift screwed him over in revenge for screwing over the curly haired woman. Soon enough, Bumblebee's frantic and angry whirling and beeping soon joined in with Sideswipe's protests as Drift soon screwed over the little bot.

It was the third lap of the final race and things weren't working out well for Sideswipe, "No,no,no,no,no!" he panicked as he seen Daisy come up behind his character and launch three red shells at him. All three hit him in successfully and put him from first to fifth, seeing as Bumblebee's Toad, Luigi and Mario all passed him. "Stop it you fragging pieces of slag!" he raged angrily as Élise watched with a sense of déjà vu. She smiled and watched Sideswipe begin to get screwed over in a familiar fashion as she had but he had gotten it a lot worse, he ended up in twelfth place. First to twelfth, he was not a happy mech.

Sideswipe roared out in rage and chucked the remote at the couch and glared in irritation at the smirking Samurai, " Try again next time my friend." Drift simply said with a smug smile and calmly placed the remote down as he was quickly surrounded and congratulated by the bots in the room. Drift nodded graciously to his companions and walked over to a smiling Élise, "Do you feel better now Élise-chan?" he asked with a knowing look.

Her smile brightened as she nodded, "Yes, thank you Drift." Drift nodded and held his hands behind his back, "Any time my friend, now I believe it is time that I retire. Good night Élise-chan and good night to the rest of you as well" Drift said with a nod and made his way out of the room. The bots called out their good nights to the Samurai and began to converse with each other once he was gone.

Élise finished her sloppy joe and talked with the femmes and some of the other bots for a good hour and a half until Optimus came over and stole her away, claiming that she had a long day and it was time she went to sleep. The bots protested but said their good nights nonetheless, Élise waved goodbye and chatted away with Optimus until they had reached the human side of the hangar, where they had to part ways.

"Thank you for the ride, Optimus." she smiled gratefully as he placed her down on to the floor. Optimus returned the smile and nodded, "It was no trouble, have a good night Élise."he said with a nod and turned, beginning to walk away. "You too Optimus!" she paused and let a wicked grin spread across her lips," And Optimus!" she called to the gentle giant before he could get too far away.

He turned and raised an eye ridge in curiosity, "Yes?"he asked. She smirked, "Try and keep it down when you and Elita decide to get frisky at night, we can't all turn off our hearing like the others can." she teased. Energon rushed to his cheek plates, turning them a bright blue as he sputtered, trying to create some sort of response to the cackling woman. "Good night Optimus!" she said cheerfully and turned around, beginning her walk to her room.

**.0.o.0.o.0.**

**A/N: **Ok, so I will be doing some editing to the last four chapters ( Hidden Island to Rally the troops) and they'll be taken down during the editing. I also apologize for the big lack of updating, once the holidays rolled around and school started back up I just kind of fell off. But I'm back and that what matters right? ... No? Okay :(. ANyways thanks for the reads and what now, I still and will always appreciate it!


	19. Hidden Island ( changed a bit)

"Deep breaths, Élise-chan. Clear your mind of all troubles." Drift calmly instructed as he sat next to her on the sandy beach, under the shade of a palm tree. Élise inhaled a large breath of air and slowly exhaled.

...

...

...

This was turning out harder than it should have been. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't relax. Her mind kept going back to the fact that it was 2 weeks into the new month, Barricade had run out of time and Megatron's words rang true. Decepticon reinforcements have been arriving lately.

Their signals were popping up all over the place, searching for them no doubt. The question on why they haven't found them yet was a mystery to her. They were showing up at every location except for the one location where they should have been looking. But despite this, Optimus had put the base on total lock down. No one left the base unless Élise had been with them.

But they couldn't stay hidden forever, they would need food and supplies for the humans eventually. Chromia and Ironhide had talked to him, saying that they have played it safe long enough. They had enough bots and they would need to strike while the Decepticons were scattered, instead of clustered together. Optimus had reluctantly agreed with them and began to call meetings often to discuss plans of action.

Jazz and Hound were doing better, Hound more so seeing as he didn't need as much serious work as Jazz did. He had even joined in on a good half of the training sessions. Ratchet dubbed that as long as he didn't take another blow to the chest like he had before and as long as he had someone watching his back then he should be fine to fight.

Jazz wasn't too happy with this, he was not ready to fight yet. But the mech could hardly manage a light jog around the med bay so how could he stand the strain of battle? She sighed, they just needed to attack and get it over with. This was driving her nuts.

"What ails you Élise-chan?" Drift asked calmly. She growled and shook her head in agitation," Chromia and Ironhide are right Drift. We need to attack** now**, while they are out there - separated while they search. It doesn't make sense as of why the Decepticons haven't found us yet. They are looking everywhere but the one place where they should be looking." Élise frowned in confusion.

"And you think that this is a bad thing?" Drift raised an eye ridge in calm speculation. "No! Of course not but it's just...ugh! What is Optimus waiting for?!" she nearly yelled in frustration. Drift didn't react to her little near outburst though.

He simply kept his calm demeanor as he regarded the stressed woman besides him. "I understand your frustrations, Élise-chan and I even share them. But I also understand why sensei is being so reluctant to rally his troops and lead us in to battle." he said patiently. She quirked her eyebrow and motioned him to continue on.

" It has been a very long time since sensei has seen this many of his companions all together and in general good health. He fears he will lose them all again if he makes a mistake with his judgement. So, he is trying to play it on the safe side." Drift explained. Élise nodded in sympathy and understanding, she could understand that.

Hell, it may have been something she would have done too if she had been in Optimus' shoes but then again, she would have attacked already as well. "I can understand that, I really can. But it's going to have to be a risk he has to take, even you know you would have to agree with that." she pointed out with a frown.

Drift gently vented air and nodded his head slowly," Yes, I'm afraid I would. If sensei waits much longer to attack then I fear that he will lead us into a losing battle. You, Ironhide and Chromia are all correct in stating that we should attack now, when they are all scattered, that would be the wisest plan of action for us to take." he agreed.

Well that was good, she was glad someone other than the two other battle hungry bots had agreed that they needed to attack, "At the meetings," she began, " has he ever said where you guys would strike first?" she shook his head,"Sensei has been heavily stressing the importance of watching over each other and to always look for an escape route if things were to get out of control during battle. He has had us practice said evasion techniques and tag team maneuvers as well. He has yet to decide on a location of our first attack.

I can foresee with out a doubt, that Ironhide and Chromia will soon be running their own training sessions where tag team combination moves and evasive maneuvers will not be the center of their attention. Though, they would not be wrong in doing so. We need offensive training as well, not just defensive" he advised with a shake of his helm.

Before another thought could be formed or another sentence vocalized, a high pitched alarm had begun to go off. Élise froze, that was the alarm for the Decepticons getting close to the island. Speak of the Devil and he shall appear._  
><em>

Drift tensed and stood from his sitting position, one hand resting on a sword as he scanned the clear blue sky and the calm blue waters for the Decepticons. "Élise-chan, come. It is time we returned back to the base." Drift said, gently nudging her with his foot to try getting her up onto her feet instead of staying in her frozen state on the ground.

This was it, they finally found them.

"No Drift." she shook her head once his gentle nudges had snapped her out of it. She needed to stay here and do what she promised to do. "My orders are to stay here and hide the island, you'll understand once you get back into the base" she explained when she seen his confused facial features.

"But right now, you need to get back into the base. Open a comm link and tell Ratchet to get his metal butt into gear and get to my location. I won't wait for him." she stated getting into position. She bent down on one knee, rested a hand on each side of her leg and began to focus.

She felt an intense pressure immediately push against her skull as she pushed her powers to the limit. It had been a while since she felt the feeling and she could certainly say that she hadn't missed it. It was killer on her head but this was something she needed to do. She promised she would, and Élise Cross did not go back on her promises.

0.0.o.0.o.0

"How are you holding up Élise?" Ratchet's soft question had broken the silence of the island. "Fine" she whispered back absently. She would have been a little better if she hadn't of been at this for over an hour, baking under the sun. Sweat was beaded across her forehead and rolled down her neck. She had been under the shade of the palm tree but the sun had re-positioned itself, glaring down on her still form in the sand.

Her breathing was beginning to get a bit ragged and she could feel the familiar feeling of a wetness in her nose weal up and roll out of her nostrils. She cautiously looked down at the sandy soil beneath her finger tips and seen the red splotches burning brightly against the pale color of the sand. Great, her nose had began bleeding already. The pressure on her head had gotten a bit worse too, it was beginning to pound against her skull in a timely fashion.

From what she remembered, it wouldn't be long until her eyes, ears and mouth began bleeding too and then she would begin to shake uncontrollably. When she began to shake was when the hidden cover would be dropped in a span of 10 minutes. Then, she would soon follow.

"Not going to lie Ratchet, I'd be a lot better if the Decepticons hadn't of decided to come this way during the hottest time of the day." she frowned frowned sympathetically, "I'm afraid you're going to have to hold on youngling. Optimus says that the search will last for another few hours, the radars are picking up signals left and right." he paused and looked down at his own scanners and radars, "They aren't letting up." he reported. Élise sighed in disappointment, "Of course they aren't." she mumbled and refocused her attention on hiding the island.

0.o.0.o.0.o

"Ratchet, I swear to God. If you don't get the heck away from me and if you don't shut the hell up, I'll electrocute your ass so bad you won't wake up until three days from now." Élise growled frustratingly as the yellow bot hovered over her. Her eyes had began to bleed so she had closed them, making it look like she was crying tears of blood.

She could feel her ears begin to moisten and felt it spread down the sides of her face, her ears had began to bleed no doubt. Her breathing had gotten harsher over time and so had the pounding on her head. The sweat had increased and was rolling down into her eyes and mixing with the blood much to her displeasure. It felt disgusting, absolutely disgusting. She hated it, she couldn't stand the feeling of the sweat rolling down her face the way it was.

She felt like she desperately needed a break, which she did. But like Optimus and Ratchet had reported, the Decepticons would not stop coming. They approached the island from every direction known to man. So she was left with no choice but to keep up the cover and tough it out.

"Élise, you need a break! Just look at yourself! Your eyes, nose and ears are bleeding, your heart rate has picked up and your breathing is off- even more so than it had been from when I had first found you." he argued stubbornly. Élise growled at the yellow medic, "Ratchet! I told you guys that I've done this before and it wasn't pretty. Well, **this** is the not so pretty part about the whole thing! I know what I look like and I know what's happening to me. I'll tell you when you need to start worrying about me, but now is not the time!" she snapped irritably.

He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by another," So when is? Cause it looks like that we should be worrying about you right now." It was Sideswipe. The silver mech was frozen in shock, the poor woman looked terrible! She was covered in blood and sweat and he seen her breathing was irregular. This is what she had been talking about?! This is what she was going through to keep them all hidden?

She scoffed with a smirk,"Not for a while yet. Trust me, I'll tell you when you guys should start worrying. Now why are you here? Optimus has the base on lock down, especially now." she pointed out, slightly turning her head towards the swords' master in acknowledgement. Sideswiped broke out of his stupor and shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"Oh right, well I'll tell you right now that you aren't going to enjoy the news." he frowned regretfully. Élise sighed heavily, "What is it?" she asked almost afraid of the answer. He frowned sympathetically,"There's another incoming Autobot, and he's looking to the island to land on but it looks like he needs just a quick reconfirmation on its' coordinates. If he gets that quick confirmation then he's guaranteed he'll land here and not in the ocean." Sideswipe reported.

The curly haired woman visibly sagged in defeat as a few, small, stressful tears mixed with sweat and blood began rolling down her face as she registered Sideswipe's news. This could not be happening right now, it just couldn't. **Why** was this happening now? Why did this guy decide to show up now, of all times?! She sighed in exasperation and opened her eyes, blinking out the sweat, blood and tears.

She turned her head to Ratchet, "Do I have an opening anytime soon?" she asked quietly. Ratchet looked down at his scanners and nodded, " You'll have an opening in one minute and twenty seconds but it won't last for long." he advised.

Élise sighed again and turned to Sideswipe, "Go back to base and tell Optimus that I will lower the cover for 6 seconds, but no more. That's all I can afford to do right now and if the new guy wants to get on this island that bad then he'll be able to get the coordinates in that amount of time. If I leave the cover down for any longer then I don't know if I'll be able to put it back up in time to avoid detection by the Decepticons." she informed. Sideswipe nodded and shifted back down to his alt mode, kicking up sand as he raced back to the base to deliver the news.

.0.o.0.o.0

Six...Five...Four...Three...Two..One...Zero...

That's all he gets, Élise thought to herself as she put the cover back up. If he didn't get the coordinates then he was out of luck and would need to land somewhere in the ocean. After a few more minutes of silence, Ratchet moved forward and observed the sea and sky. It was quiet, and there were no more signals that he could pick up on his scanners. Were they finally done with the search?

" It's quiet and I'm not getting anything on my scanners. I believe they are finished with their search."Ratchet said in relief. There were no more Decepticons flying over their heads or sailing by the island, disguised as boats or ships. Before she could reply she heard the familiar roar of an engine racing up to them. Ratchet turned in time to see Sideswipe transform back into his bipedal mode.

"Optimus says it's clear to drop the cover, the radars and scanners aren't picking anything else up. The only thing coming to the island is going to be the new guy but he won't be landing for another hour or two. He wants the both of you back at the base ASAP." Sideswipe reported back. Ratchet nodded and stood up, running a quick scan over her.

He frowned at the results and quickly scooped up the small woman into his hands, causing her to yelp in surprise. "Thanks for the warning Ratchet." she grumbled as she was forced to drop the cover. Not that she was complaining of course, she was more than grateful to drop it once she felt the consistent pounding on her head back off a bit.

Ratchet didn't bother to grace her with a response, he simply shifted into his alt mode and raced back to base, with Sideswipe racing after him.

0.o.0.o.0.

During the race back to the base, Ratchet had informed him that Élise's heart rate was dropping drastically and she was bleeding internally. In other words, she would die if he didn't get her back to the med bay for proper treatment. At this news, Sideswipe had easily sped past Ratchet and tore towards the base, determined to help his friends in anyway he possibly could.

"Open the door!" Sideswipe yelled, transforming in mid air and skated closer towards the base doors. The humans started and quickly did as the swords' master ordered and watched in confusion as he raced past, demanding that everyone in his way to move out of the way. They jumped out of his way and watched in confusion as he swerved around a corner and began yelling for anyone in his way to clear a path.

Before any of the on lookers could utter out a word to each other, the wail of Ratchet's siren blared loudly in the air as a yellow hummer came racing into the bay and swerved around the corner Sideswipe had taken. No doubt that if the silver bot hadn't of cleared a way for him earlier, he would have mowed down some humans in his path.

"Move, move, move!" Sideswipe continued to bellow as he raced his way towards the med bay, humans and bots a like jumped out of his way. "What's the big deal Sideswipe?!" Flareup yelled angrily. " Something's wrong with Élise! She's dying!" he yelled back without a pause and continued to race along, clearing a path for the medic as he went.

"Élise?" she echoed concerned but that was all she got out before she spotted Ratchet's alt mode tare after the wheeled mech, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Her eyes widened in fright for the mutant they've all come to love and shifted down in to her own alt mode to go and get the other bots and her uncle. "Optimus! Elita! Epps!" she yelled down the hallways as she hunted for the ones she needed.

0.0.o.0.o.0.o

Sideswipe vented air harshly as he burst through the med bay doors and held them open for the ambulance not too far behind him. The sudden intrusion startled Jazz and Hound badly, "Sweet Primus, mech. Now what did you go and do that for?!" Hound demanded as he held a servo over his raging spark. "Élise is dying." Sideswipe vented breathlessly. Hound and Jazz felt their sparks stop for a few moments, "What?" Jazz whispered harshly in disbelief.

Sideswipe didn't get the chance to answer, seeing as Ratchet raced through at that precise moment. He slammed on the breaks and fishtailed before coming to a complete stop. "Élise? Élise, if you're still awake, I need you to get out for me okay?" Ratchet said a bit breathlessly. It was quiet for a few moments until the yellow medic picked up the faint sound of groaning and felt the young woman stir in the inside of his alt mode. It took her a moment but she managed to make her way out of the yellow rescue hummer.

As soon as both of her feet were out of the door and rested on the white tiled floor, Ratchet transformed and scooped the ailing woman up, depositing her onto a table. He quickly got her hooked up to all types of machines to stabilize her condition much to the chagrin of her, seeing as she was not a fan of needles and he had just put one right in the crook of her elbow for God only knows what.

"I d-don't want it, n-no me gusta." she pouted drowsily. Ratchet looked down and frowned in sympathy, "I know you don't like it, but you need it if your going to survive." he tried to reason. She whined and turned her head away from the medic, grimacing when a sudden wave of pain washed over her and the sudden need to throw up hit her. "Oh boy" he faintly heard her mutter before she leaned over and puked up blood.

Ratchet ignored the panicked calls of the other occupants of the room and quickly thought over multiple ways to try and stop her from vomiting up blood. He quickly hooked her up to an IV and gave her some medicine to settle her stomach. Élise faintly groaned and weakly raised an arm to cover her forehead, "Not too sure how this is going to play out Ratch" she mumbled tiredly. She felt so tired and just wanted to sleep, she didn't want to deal with anything.

Ratchet glared down at her, "Enough of that talk Élise, you're going to be fine." he argued. She softly sighed in defeat, "What ever you say Ratchet" she mumbled and closed her eyes, falling into the darkness that had been calling to her. "Élise? Élise!" Ratchet called lightly shaking her but soon cursed, he growled in frustration and ran more scans, doing what he could to heal Élise. But after a few moments her heart monitor began going haywire much to his surprise and flat lined in a matter of seconds.

Ratchet froze as he stared down in disbelief, did she just-? Another curse slipped past his lips when a something hit him in the back of his helm, he whipped around and seen a wrench clattering on to the ground and Jazz falling back on to his back. He was no doubt the one who threw one of the wrenches. "Don't just stand there! Bring her back!" Jazz yelled with a glare meant for him but aimed up at the ceiling.

The blow to the back of the helm was what the medic exactly needed to get him back into gear. With a reowned vigor Ratchet grabbed the near by defibrillator paddles and got them ready to go. "Come on Élise, don't you give up on me" Ratchet murmured fearfully as he slowly lowered the paddles onto her still form.

**0.o.0.o.0.o**

**A/n:** Hey! So yeah, not too much change to the chapter but there was a little change nonetheless. Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes and thanks for the reads and reviews :D


	20. Waking up and a new possibility

Ratchet sighed in relief once he had managed to finally keep their curly haired woman stabilized for more than twenty minutes. He had nearly lost her another time after the first time she slipped away. However, she then proceeded to give the trio of mechs -him, Jazz and Hound- (Sideswipe had soon fled the med bay to keep the others out, on Ratchet's orders) a spark attack. When Ratchet had worked on bringing her back for a second time, her heart beat did not come back until the third shock he sent through her with the defibrillator paddles.

After recovering from his own mini spark attack from the thought of losing her for good, he feverishly continued to work for another hour and a half until he could do no more for her. All he could do was sit and wait, helping whenever it was necessary. But unless her heart beat stopped again, he could do no more for her. From now on, it was up to Élise if she lived through this or not.

"Is she going to be okay?" Hound asked softly. Ratchet turned away from the sleeping woman and nodded hesitantly to the bearded mech, "Theoretically, she should be fine. But in all honesty it will be up to her if she continues to live or not." he said vaguely. Hound frowned," What do you mean it's up to her?" he asked suspiciously.

Ratchet sighed softly as he voiced his reasoning," There are two parts of the healing process, Hound. There's the first part, which is physically healing. I can heal and bring her back as many times as I may please and that's fine. But the second part of the process plays a slightly bigger role. One must have the will to continue to live on. I can do all the healing in the world on her, but none of that will matter if she does not **want** to come back. You and Jazz escaped from death, not only because of the medical treatment you received but because you **wanted** too.

If her desire to pass on to the after life is much stronger than the will to live, then she will die and there will be nothing that I can do about it." he paused and continued in a lighter tone, "But seeing as this is Élise we are talking about, I believe we have no reason to fear her leaving us once and for all. She is a strong girl and she would not give up so easily. Give her some time, Hound, and she will wake up soon enough. You'll see." Ratchet smiled lightly and turned, making his way to the metal doors to confront the crowd, that would no doubt be waiting to hear the news on Élise.

0.o.0.o.0.o (A few days later)

Élise groaned as she felt a bright light shinning down on her face. Someone needed to turn off the lights! It had only felt like she'd only fallen unconscious 10 minutes ago but as she laid there contemplating whether to force herself up, her levels of consciousness slowly increased.

Finally, she opened her eyes but quickly regretted it as a bright light flooded her vision. She quickly shut her eyes again and grimaced. What, was she in Heaven or something?

...

...

...

Wait, that wasn't funny, she shouldn't be dead. The strain shouldn't of killed her! During her rising panic, she failed to notice the rapid beeping of her heart monitor was increasing with the levels of her panic. The sound of Jazz's voice calling out to her didn't register in her mind either. "Élise! Élise! You have to calm down, you're okay now!" his accented words had surprisingly disappeared during his desperate calls to the woman.

His words fell deaf on her ears though. With a grunt, he pulled himself from his berth and hobbled over to the human berth Ratchet had her set up shoved the light above her away and shook her as carefully as he could manage. "Élise! Élise! Please wake up darlin' you're killing me here!" he begged as he watched her heat rate pick up even more.

"Damn it. Ratch sure does have great timin' don't he?" he asked himself sarcastically as he glared at the door he had last been seen the medic walking past. He turned back to the woman fearfully and attempted to wake her up again, "Wake up darlin' please! Don't you dare leave us. You've been close to doin' that too many times and I don't think my poor ol' spark can take it anymore." he whimpered.

This time, his words seemed to have gotten to her because her heart rate had begun to calm down again. Was that Jazz speaking to her? The saboteur smiled in relief and laughed humorlessly as he gently brushed her cheek with one of his clawed digits, "Tha's right darlin'. Jazz is here for ya. Now come back to me, open your eyes." he whispered encouragingly.

It took a few moments but finally her eyes fluttered open, revealing the pale blue-grey eyes he came to love much like a lot of the other bots and humans on base. "There are those beautiful eyes I love so much." he whispered in victory."Mmmm. Jazz?" she croaked out, blinking a few times to get used to the amount of light in the room. Jazz smiled in relief, "I'm here darlin', I'm here." he cooed as he continued to brush her cheek. "Wha- what happened?" she asked groggily.

Jazz chuckled," Ya' saved us, that's what happ'ned. Ya kept the island hidden from the Decepticons. Don't ya' remember?" he asked. She took a moment before nodding. Yes, she did remember that. She suddenly reached up and grabbed onto his clawed finger stroking her cheek,"Alright Freddy Cougar. If you stab one of my eyes out with those claws of yours, I'm kicking your ass." she growled playfully.

Jazz laughed and raised his hands in surrender, "Alright, alright. I'll stop." he chuckled. He paused and lifted his visor to meet her gaze evenly, " I sure am glad ya are alright though. There were a few scary moments where we thought we'd lose ya." he frowned. Élise mimicked the frown," I'm sorry" she whispered guiltily. "How long have I been out for?" she asked, remembering how she had been out for a good 6 months the last time she did this.

"Few days." he shrugged, "Four at the most I believe." he supplied. Élise's eye brows shot up in surprise. Four days? That was it? Well, maybe she had been out for so long last time because she wasn't as experienced with her powers then compared to now. She also had to be brought back to life twice and then was in a coma for six months.

Now that she thought about it, if she would have known that making a building and the mutants inside, inaudible, intangible and invisible would have killed her twice and put her in a six month coma, she probably wouldn't have agreed as easily as she did. I mean she would of still agreed to do it you know, but either way she wouldn't have done it as eagerly as she had.

However, this time was different. She was more experienced with her powers and all she had to do was hide everyone and thing. "Not bad, not bad at all" she whispered with a satisfied nod. "So where is everyone? The base is oddly quiet today" she pointed out. It was true, she couldn't really here any activity outside the med bay like she could on a normal day.

Jazz huffed, inadvertently blowing a stream of air onto her smaller form. "They all ditched us to go kick some Decepticon aft, all 'cept Ratchet." he pouted. Élise chuckled at the childish pout on his face, it was adorable to see on him. "It's not funny!" he whined, "I wanted ta go too!". Élise did her best to calm down but found it was pretty hard with an advanced life form pouting like a little child.

"Aww~ It's okay sweet heart, I'm sure you can go next time" she cooed reassuringly. Jazz turned to her with an eye ridge raised in an 'offended' way, "You makin' fun of me darlin'? 'Cause I don't think I'd appreciate it if ya was doin' it." he growled playfully. "Me? Making fun of you? Why of course not! Why on Earth would I make fun of an advanced life form pouting as if he were a little child who didn't get the toy he wanted for Christmas? That's ridiculous, it would never cross my mind!" she exclaimed beaming up at him.

He narrowed his optics at her good naturedly, "Ya know, I'm startin' to think you're spendin' too much time with Ratch. I don't remember ya bein' that smart mouthed before." he noted. Élise chuckled before shaking her head,"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to smart mouth you. But I was kind of serious, maybe they will take you next time. After all, it can't be that good of a Decepticon butt whooping with out you there to show them how it's done, now can it?" she asked with a smile, already knowing the answer the saboteur would offer.

"You're damn right it can't! Can't no one whoop a Decepticons aft like I can!" he proclaimed. His proclamation was however, was short lived. The sound of something whizzing through the air registered in her ears before the sound of metal hitting metal and a yelp quickly followed it.

Ratchet was back.

"Awww~ man Ratchet! That hurts! I didn't even do anythin'!" Jazz complained as he rubbed the back of his helm. Ratchet strolled in with a smug yet stern look on his face, "Watch your language around Élise. I don't want her catching up on it anymore than she already has." he scolded as he handed the saboteur his energon ration before turning towards a smirking Élise.

"How are you doing Élise?" he asked softly as he ran a scan over her. "Fine, thank you." she smiled. "Yeah no thanks to you" Jazz grumbled into his drink. Ratchet narrowed his optics at the saboteur, "And why is that?" he asked lowly. "Jazz!" Élise snapped before he had a chance to reply, "Knock it off." she ground out, knowing where he was going with this. "No, let him speak. Why is she fine no thanks to me?" Ratchet questioned.

" 'Cause the lil darlin' had one of her episode thingies! Her heart rate was goin' haywire and you weren't here to help her, I had to!" Jazz confessed. Ratchet froze. He didn't think he had been gone that long but even if he was, then her heart shouldn't of acted up like Jazz claimed it did. Everything was stable when he left, he made sure of it.

"Ratchet, it's not your fault. You know that right? My heart rate was off the charts because all I seen was the light shining down on me and I thought I was dead. Nothing more, nothing less." Élise promised. The medic sighed guiltily, "Nonetheless, I am sorry." he apologized," I should have known better than to leave the light on above you like that." he said with a shake of his head. She waved off the apology,"Water under the bridge dude. So, where are all the others attacking?" she asked curiously.

"Optimus split them up into two teams. Optimus himself, Ironhide, Arcee, Flareup, Bluestreak, Mudflap and Jolt were all on one team together, they went off with a portion of the soldiers to Wyoming to deal with the Decepticons there." Ratchet started but was interrupted by Élise. "Wait, wait , wait. Who's Jolt? Was he the new guy that showed up while I was out?" she asked."Yes," Ratchet nodded," he's also my medical apprentice but like every other bot on base, he knows his way around the battle field. He'll be fine." he promised when he seen her concerned look.

"The other team," he continued," was made up of Bumblebee, Chromia, Elita-One, Sideswipe, Skidz, Drift and Hound. They all headed to Utah with another portion of soldiers to deal with the Decepticons there." he finished. "Annnd~ we're here to watch the base." Jazz finished lamely as he finished his ration and threw it across the room, where it successfully landed in the trash bin. "Coby!" Élise called as she mimicked the throw with a laugh.

Jazz was quick to follow in laughter, "Damn that was a pretty good shot too huh?"he asked smugly. "Yes, utterly amazing" Ratchet droned with a roll of his optics,"Now, if you have nothing better to do than throw things across my med bay then you can begin your stretches and warm ups." he instructed with a strange gleam in his optics.

Jazz grimaced,"But they hurt!" he protested as Ratchet gave him a shove towards a more open area of the med bay. "Good, that means they're working then." Ratchet said smugly. He turned back to Élise after he had forced the silver bot down on to the floor, "You are free to go Élise, my scans say you should be fine as long as you take it easy...but if you feel anymore pain then come back right away" he instructed sternly as he began to push down on Jazz's back, much to the saboteur's chargin.

"I hear you Ratchet, I hear you." she promised and hopped out of bed, "See you guys later." she waved as she made her way out of the med bay. "No, wait! Élise come back! Take me with you!" Jazz wailed and quickly yelped when he was hit in the helm with a wrench for a second time that day.

0.o.0.o.0.o

"Hey! Excuse me miss?!" an unfamiliar voice called from behind her. Élise stopped her walk down the hall of the human hangar and turned to see a man she was pretty sure she never seen before, jogging towards her. He was handsome with out a doubt. Tan skin, rich forest green eyes, a strong jaw decorated with a five o clock shadow, messy dirty blonde hair and had a muscular build that complimented his height that towered over her by 3 inches.

"Are you...Élise?" he asked in surprise as his eyes scanned over her body. "Um yes?" she answered hesitantly. Who was he exactly? He blinked and shook his head sheepishly,"Don't you remember me? It's me, Jarret. Junior year in high school? We had Algebra 2 and Chemistry together? In chemistry I used to sit right in front of you and Crystal would sit behind you? We would get in trouble with Mrs.K like every day because we were talking for the entire hour?" he rattled off hoping the woman in front of him would remember like he did.

Élise racked her brain for said memories. It all did sound familiar to her now that she thought about it. She did remember Crystal sitting behind her, and she did remember often getting into trouble with Mrs.K for talking.

...

...

Oh! She did remember him! Jarret **did** sit in front of her! She remembered how he would often turn around and start up a conversation with her as they listened to the lecture or took notes in the Chemistry class. While she tried her best to not reply to him and at least make eye contact with the teacher to prove she was trying to listen, she would still get in trouble with him. Part of the reason of why she struggled in Chemistry so much had been because of him but she never really got angry with him though.

No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't hold a grudge against the boy. The conversations they had made her day, and he had always made her day. Even though they only seen each other twice during the day for those two classes and maybe once in the halls after school, they were close friends. It was a shame that after high school they hadn't kept in touch, she missed him.

"Oh my God, I do remember you!" she laughed and hugged her old high school friend tightly. He laughed and wrapped his muscular arms around her smaller form carefully, not wanting to hurt her. "I'm glad, I would have felt pretty stupid if it wasn't you and you were just some random chick." he chuckled as they pulled away. "That would have been hilarious" she pointed out with a smile.

"Yeah, hilariously awkward! So how have you been? I haven't seen or heard from you in a while. You been hiding from me? Think you're too good to keep in touch with me?" he teased as he wrapped an arm around her and lead her down the hall in the direction she had been walking before he stopped her. Élise smiled and rolled her eyes at her old friend, "I've been pretty good for the most part. And I have been hiding, but not from you" she replied carefully. Not many people from her high school days had known the truth about her. But considering the recent events that had just happened, it wouldn't be long until he found out.

"You're still hiding from your stalker?" he asked incredulously. Yeah, she had a stalker back in high school and it was definitely not fun. After a while, Jarret and some of her other guy friends from her chemistry class had jumped the poor soul pretty badly when he was following her home. It worked though, she hasn't seen him ever since and hoped her luck would continue to hold out with the creeper. "No, I haven't seen him since you, Isaac and the others beat the crap out of him." she answered with a grateful smile.

He smirked, "Good. The little creep deserved it. So, who are you hiding from if it's not from me or your stalker?" he asked as the rounded a corner. "There are a lot more people that I'm not trying to see Jarret. I couldn't stand them then and I still can't stand them now." she replied smartly. The blonde man winced and gave her smirk, "Dude, that's harsh." he chuckled. She smacked her lips and rolled her eyes,"Because joining the military was sooo~ your first option to go into after high school. I remember you had quite the plan after high school.

You were going to head into college right away and work on getting your Masters' and PhD so you could become a Physical Therapist. Then, you were going to find a girl during the time span of that. Then, after you got your little degrees, you were going to move out to Seattle and live out your life on the West coast with your girl and your two pet guinea pigs. What happened?" she giggled.

He blushed in embarrassment, "Crazy ex-girl friend" he mumbled as he rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. Élise laughed and lightly smacked his toned chest,"So you hide in the military to avoid her? Isn't that a bit extreme?" she asked with a raised eye brow. His eyes widened as he shook his head frantically,"No! Dude, Élise. She was crazy, I had to get out of there! She stalked me during my college classes and followed me around campus.

If I wasn't in my dorm room at night, she would literally bang on every single door of the floor I was living on and she would ask where I was until someone finally knew and told her. I remember I was with a group of friends one night and we had went to the movies. I was sitting next to one of the girls I met in one of my classes and all of a sudden, guess who comes in screeching like a freaking banshee?!" he asked raising his voice an octave.

"Her?" Élise guessed with a smile. "Yes! Her! Oh my God, she made such a huge scene. They had to stop the movie and there were at least 4 different workers who came in and tried to get her to leave but she wouldn't. I honestly don't think I've ever been so embarrassed in my life! And when I tried to get her to leave she wouldn't! So then I just threw her over my shoulder and carried her crazy self out of there, broke up with her right in front of the theater and left her there.

The next day I started making arrangements for a transfer and I was out of there in 3 weeks. I finished up my last few years at the University of Arizona and volunteered myself for service right after. Never did go back to work on my Masters' or PhD." he finished with a frown. Élise whistled, "Damn. That sucks dude, like crazy bad. I'm sorry that happened to you." she apologized giving him a little side hug. "Yeah, you're telling me." he sighed as he squeezed her back.

After a quick few moments, he coughed lightly and looked down at her with a slight blush on his tanned cheeks, "Hey, um do you want to go get some food from the cafeteria? All that depressing story telling made me hungry." he joked rubbing his flat stomach. Élise laughed and nodded, "Trust me dude, I know the feeling. Now let's go I'm hungry and I want first crack at the food." she said before taking off.

"Hey!" she heard him protest before the sound of running feet quickly followed. She squealed as she was suddenly swept off her feet and into a pair of strong arms. She looked up and seen a smirking Jarret, easily carrying her as he ran down the halls. "W-wait a minute! W-what are you doing? Put me down!" she protested, feeling a bit self conscious of her weight. He laughed at her displeasure and rounded another corner, "You run too slow. By the time you get there, the food will be cold" he teased.

"Hey!" she yelled, she was not slow! He was just unnaturally fast! "Aw calm down, you know you love me" he cooed making kissing noises. She scoffed and rolled her eyes with a smile, "Somehow I do Jarret, somehow I still do" she laughed.

0.o.0.o.0.o

"Jarret! I swear to God if you drop me, I'll kill you!" Élise squealed in fright as she gripped onto the backs of his thighs, desperately trying to keep herself from falling. A couple hours after the two had eaten, Jarret had dragged her off into the abandoned human rec room and quickly got to rough housing with her after she had made a claim that she could easily take the man down in a fight.

She wasn't as mistaken as Jarret believed her to be, she held her own rather well in the small play fights but it was when she let her guard down did he manage to get leverage over her. After their third round of play fighting they had stopped to take a break for her sake and right as she said she was ready to go again, he had surprisingly charged her and swung the curly haired woman over his shoulder and little by little, let his grip on her slip.

"Kill me? Now that doesn't sound too nice, especially after all these years of not seeing each other? I thought we were friends Élise!" he joked, carefully letting go of the squealing woman a bit more. Instead of his arm being wrapped around her waist and holding her there, his arm was now wrapped around her thighs just above her knees.

Élise panicked a bit as she had to let go of his thighs and move her hands down to his calves... It wouldn't have been so bad if his butt hadn't of been right in front of her face. "Jarret! I do not want your butt in my face!" she snapped with a small giggle. The green eyed man smirked, "Don't hate on my butt Élise, you know you like it." he sang wiggly said butt.

She squeaked and jerked her head back as best as she could, trying to fight the smile off of her face. "No thank you!" she said loudly and kept her head as far away from it as possible, which wasn't by a lot. "Aww~ Don't fight it Élise, you know you want some of this." he said and leaned over a bit, forcing the tip of her chin to rest on his rear end.

"No! No! No! No thank you sir! Take your cookies else where, I don't want any!" she couldn't help but laugh out loud as she tried to unsuccessfully get her face away from his gluteus maximus. "Don't fight it, Élise. It'll be easier if you just don't fight it!" he laughed over her squeals and protests. Neither of them had noticed, but sometime during their little exchange, one of the men from the science lab had walked in and froze as he watched this exchange between the two friends with amusement.

After watching this for a few more moments ( and after taking a quick picture) he had decided to intervene. He cleared his throat and spoke loudly,"Uh excuse me? I hate to bother your little bonding time here, but I'd like a word with Élise if that's okay?" he asked. At the sound of a new voice joining them in the room,the duo froze and pinned the man with a shocked stare.

Élise was the first of the two to break out of her stupor and smile to the scientist, "Yeah, of course." she agreed easily. Jarret had broken out of his stupor as soon as she had begun speaking and carefully lowered her to the ground when she was done. He helped her up and gave her a quick hug good bye before she departed with the scientist.

"Soo, what is this about exactly?" Élise asked once the two had left the rec room and traveled down the halls. The scientist smiled, "Well to start off I believe introductions should be in order, seeing as we may very well be working together more in the future." he began and paused to hold out a hand to her," My name is Kayden Blake, head of the science department here in the base." he introduced kindly.

Élise smiled back and shook his head, introducing herself as she got a good look at him. He looked rather young, mid to late twenties maybe even early thirties. He had olive toned skin and sapphire blue eyes. He matched her height perfectly and had a rather strong build for a scientist but she wasn't one to judge. His hair was a light, bundle of brown curls cut close to his head in a square shape to keep his look masculine and strong.

"Not to be rude but what did you mean by, we may be working together in the future more often?" she asked as they continued their walk. "Well, I figure that you would like to see how our synthetic energon is working out, wouldn't you?" he questioned with a smile. Élise gasped with a smile, "You did it?! You guys actually made synthetic energon?!" she asked with barley contained excitement.

He chuckled and motioned her to calm down, "Now calm down, calm down. We made it yes, but the question is, will it sufficiently work and restore the Autobots energy when it's consumed." he stated and pushed the button at the elevator they had stopped at. The elevator dinged and its' metallic doors swished open, Kayden allowed her to go in first and soon followed.

He absently clicked one of the buttons that would lead them to the labs and turned his head to her once Élise began speaking. "So, you want me to get this energon and bring it up to one of the bots and see if it works?" she guessed. He nodded,"Close but not to any one of the bots, to the medic preferably. He will be able to truly tell if the energon we created will actually do them some good."

The elevator doors dinged again and swished open. The lab was incredibly brightly lit, with gleaming stainless steel tables running on both sides of the room. White cabinets lined the walls, punctuated by floor-to-ceiling glass cases that displayed a combination of equipment. Kayden led her through the lab and to a specific station where a beaker of bright glowing blue liquid sat in an average sized beaker and an ever bigger one, at least five times as big was next to it.

"This is what we've come up with so far. We don't know if it'll work but it's what we could do, hopefully it'll them some good." Kayden said with a hopeful smile. Élise returned the smile, "I'm sure it's fine. Anything's better than nothing" she assured before taking the smaller beaker in her hands, "I'll run this up to Ratchet and have him scan it, and test it out. I'll let you know how it turns out." she promised.

Kayden nodded and set the larger beaker of synthetic energon off to the side, "See to it that you will and if things don't end up well, will you ask him to make some notes on the synthetic energon so we can try and improve it?" he asked. Élise nodded," Of course, and thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me and them." she smiled.

The curly haired scientist mimicked the smile and nodded, "It's the least we can do." he shrugged as he walked her back to the elevator and pushed the necessary button to get her back up onto the main floor of the base. "I will see you later Élise, have a good day" he said as the elevator doors began to close. "Bye Kayden!" she called and leaned against the elevator wall with a relieved sigh as the metallic doors closed.

She lifted the beaker up to eye level and stared at the light blue liquid within it. "Please work." she whispered hopefully.

**0.o.0.o.0.o.**

**A/n: **Hey! Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors you found. Thanks for the reads and reviews, I appreciate it! :D


	21. Oh boy (formerly known as lies)

"Ohhh~ Ratchet! Ratchet, Ratchet, Ratchet, Ratchet, Ratchet! Ratch-Ahhh!" Élise squawked and slid right into the metal doors of the med bay, and fell down on to the floor. Élise chuckled at her own silliness and pushed herself back on to her feet. Just as she pushed herself back onto her feet, the doors slid open and the yellow medibot looked down at her curiously. "Did you just...run into the door Élise? And where are your shoes?!" He questioned staring down at her neon green socks with white hearts on them.

She giggled and shrugged her shoulders, "Got rid of them, sliding around base is a lot more fun than walking. Anyways, I need you to come with me, there's something I need you to see." He gave her a wary look but relented anyways. He gave Jazz a quick shout that he would be back soon and left with Élise. She led him down to the Autobot rec room and went inside.

Like most of the base, it was completely empty. "Do you remember how we talked about making you guys a synthetic energon?" Élise asked as she lead him to one of the tables and had him sit down, before she ran/ slid over to the human sized fridge in the room. "Yes, and do you remember what I said about the odds of that actually happening?" He asked trying to see where this was going. Élise took the little beaker of synthetic energon out of the fridge and held it behind her back as she re-approached him and the table.

He helped her up on to the table without a word and tried to take a peek at what was hiding behind her back but was unsuccessful. "Well, I think you're just being a negative Nancy about this whole thing, because... look what I've got!~" she sang and revealed the light blue liquid, contained in the beaker. Ratchet 's optics widened in surprise at the small beaker of this supposed synthetic energon. "Is that...synthetic energon?" He asked carefully taking the small glass container out of her hands and held it up to his optic level.

Élise nodded, smiling, "Mhm. The guys down at the lab made it, Kayden - the head scientist here- came and grabbed me away from Jarret to show me this. He wanted you to test it out to see if it would actually restore your energy when you drink it. But if it didn't, he wanted you to take some notes on what can be improved on it." Élise explained.

Ratchet 'hmmed' to himself and ran scans on the liquid. The scans reported that the synthetic drink was rather similar to the real stuff but it was lacking in something. There wasn't enough power currents running through the drink to sufficiently restore their energy.

He vented disappointed, it was a nice try but this would never work in the state it was in now. The drink would give a bot maybe ten minutes of boosted energy until it faded away. "Élise, go and get this Kayden, you told me about. Bring him into the med bay, I want to speak with him in person." Ratchet instructed. Élise looked at him and then at the beaker, "Is there something wrong?" She asked warily.

"Hm?" He asked, breaking out of the small daze he had put himself in during his musings and shook his helm," Oh no. I would just like to show him what is wrong with this energon instead of just sending notes to the man." He reasoned. Élise gave him a strange look but turned to do as the medic had requested nonetheless.

O.o.O.o.

"Did he say what was wrong with it?" Kayden asked as the curly haired woman lead the man him through the Autobot halls of the base. Élise shook her head, "No, he just said to bring you down so he can show you instead of sending you notes." She said with a small frown. He nodded in understanding and that was it for the conversation, the rest of the journey to the med bay was in comfortable silence.

The duo walked in to the med bay to see Jazz getting up from the floor, no doubt finishing with his stretches. " It's gettin' easier, I'll admit" Jazz confessed with a smirk. Ratchet mimicked the smirk with his arms crossed over his chest,"I told you that it would, youngling. You just need to have patience." he pointed out. Jazz waved the smirking medic off flippantly, "Yeah, yeah I know, I know. The doc bot knows best" the saboteur said with a small smile.

Ratchet huffed in amusement, "You're damn right I do, glad you finally came to acknowledge it," he paused when he spotted his two guests out of the corner of his optics. "Ahh, there you two are. I was beginning to think you had gotten lost." Ratchet teased, throwing a knowing look to the only woman in the room. Élise blushed and looked down at her feet in embarrassment.

Soo~ she may or may not still have a little difficulty getting around base with out asking for quick directions. But she couldn't help it that she had a horrible sense of direction, it came from her mother! Ratchet walked forward and met Kayden and Élise half way, kneeling down on one knee in front of them. Élise raised her hand with an embarrassed smile, "Um, I'd like to point out for future reference that I haven't gotten lost in a while! I think I deserve brownie points for that." she defended.

However, her blush deepened when the three males of the room chuckled at her expense. Ratchet sobered up first and turned to his new guest, "I am assuming you are Kayden Blake, Head of the Science Department for N.E.S.T. ?" Ratchet guessed. Kayden nodded and flashed a smile to the yellow bot, "That I am sir." he confirmed.

Ratchet held out a finger as he introduced himself, "It is a pleasure to meet you then. I am Ratchet, Chief Medical Officer for the Autobots." Kayden shook the metallic finger with out hesitation as most would. "It's a pleasure to meet you too," Kayden returned politely," I'm guessing that I am here because you'd like to talk with me about our latest experiment?"he asked. Ratchet nodded, "Yes, I would. But first," he turned to a softly giggling mutant and a smirking saboteur.

Ratchet slightly narrowed his optics at the two, Jazz was knelt down in front of her and leaned in close as he whispered something into Élise's ear. A rosy smile slowly spread across her face the more he whispered to her, she eventually had to bite her lip to attempt to stop the giggles from escaping. "Élise!" Ratchet suddenly snapped loudly. The young woman squeaked in surprise and turned to the medic wide eyed, "What did I do?" she asked confused as she subconsciously took a few steps away from the silver bot.

Ratchet however, spotted Jazz move closer to her by a fraction of an inch, "Why don't you go and find Jarret? I'm sure you two can find something to entertain yourselves with." he suggested but it came out like more of an order than anything.

Before she could voice her opinion, the silver bot next to her did, "Jarret?" Jazz echoed with a hint of disgust, "Who's Jarret?" he questioned. Élise seemed to pick up on that small hint of negative emotion in his voice, "Jarret's an old high school friend. We were hanging out together earlier before Kayden came and got me." she explained a bit defensively.

Kayden then decided to step in before anything else was said,"I'm afraid he won't be able to keep her occupied anyways. He was called down to the human med bay for a check up, along with the few other soldiers left here. It'll be a while until he's done." Kayden clarified. Ratchet huffed in semi annoyance and turned to the shoeless woman, "Well then I'm afraid you're just going to have to find another way to entertain yourself until me and Kayden are finished speaking, Élise." he summed up.

She blew air through her lips and ran a hand through her hair, "Fine, but promise me you'll tell me what's wrong with the synthetic energon, after you guys go over it?" she asked hopefully. Ratchet pondered over it and hesitantly nodded, "Yes, I will. Now go on and find something to do, but stay out of mischief!" he warned with a pointed finger.

Élise rolled her eyes but nodded nonetheless, "Alright, alright. I'll stay out of trouble." she promised with a smile and made her way to the metallic doors. "And put on your shoes woman!" Ratchet called out," The last thing I need, is you getting hurt because you want to slip and slide all around the base" he added after another thought. Élise turned around and began walking backwards, in one smooth motion, "But what if I don't know where they went?" she asked honestly.

Kayden and Jazz snickered to each other as Ratchet vented heavily, rubbing his nose ridge in exasperation. "How in the name of Primus did you lose your shoes Élise?" he asked tiredly. She stopped and shrugged, "I dunno. I just don't remember where they went" she said lamely. "Well then I guess that gives you something to do now doesn't it?" Kayden offered with an amused smile.

"I suppose it does," she smiled," I'll see you guys later" Élise called with a wave and left the med bay.

0.o.0.o.0.o.

"You know it's sad when you lose your own shoes and can't even remember when or where you took them off. " Élise mumbled to herself as she traveled down the empty hall. When nothing but silence greeted her she sighed,"It's even sadder when you realize your talking to yourself." she dead panned. "You know they say it's a sign of intelligence?" a familiar voice spoke.

Élise turned and seen her uncle on her father's side, walking towards her in a soldiers uniform. Her uncle had smooth milky skin, blue eyes and shaggy black hair that was silky and soft to the touch. He was half a head taller than his niece and had a little fluff to him but he still looked very nice, physically. "Uncle Gino?" Élise questioned incredulously. The older man flashed a dazzling smile and hugged his niece tightly once she was in arms reach.

"How ya doing baby girl?" he whispered lovingly. Élise returned the hug wholeheartedly and nodded, "I'm doing just fine, uncle Gino." she began kindly but continued in a much dark tone, "But I'd be doing even better, if you were actually my uncle." she mumbled and tightened her grip on the imposer, sending electrical shocks through her body and flowing into the stranger in her arms.

She had to give it to him, it was a nice try on his part. He had everything right to the last skin cell, but her uncle had just been sent home a few months ago. He was finished with his time in the service and from what she remembered, he had no intentions of coming back. He had some major time to make up for with his family.

Her "uncle" jerked violently and let out hoarse screams of pain, "I don't appreciate people trying to pass off as my uncle, that only starts trouble. Now, who are you and how did you know I was here?" Élise asked, ignoring the wailing man in her arms. She released her hold on the stranger and watched her "uncle" wildly jerk around on the floor. After a few moments of this, Élise grew bored with the sight.

She crouched down and let electricity gather at the tips of her fingers on both hands. With one hand she gently touched the poser in the middle of his chest, "Stop" she commanded firmly, sending a special pulse of electricity through the body. With this pulse of electricity, her "uncle's" body went completely still. He couldn't even twitch if he had wanted too.

Élise took her other hand and touched the side of his head, sending out small electrical discharges into the nerve fibers of the brain. After a few moments Élise couldn't believe what she had just found out, "You fucking idiot! I could have killed you!" she suddenly yelled and gave a harsh kick to the stomach of the frozen poser.

She was sure that if he wanted to curl up in pain, he would have done so if he had control over his body. With another quick jab to the side of the head with electrified finger tips, Élise relinquished her control over his body. Slightly high pitched groaning quickly changed to drastically deepened groans of pain, "S-son o..of a b-bitch" he groaned.

The smooth milky skin of her "uncle" faded into a smooth chocolate color, blue eyes turned into brown and black shaggy hair shriveled up into a black buzz cut . A slightly fluffy body turned into a lean and muscular one, with tattoos covering ever visible inch of his body. "You stupid bastard, what do you think you're doing?!" she demanded, not the least bit sympathetic man who was slowly picking himself up.

"Getting my ass kicked on the weekend, I could have stayed home if I wanted to do that." he grumbled pitifully. Élise sighed in aggrevation and ran a hand over her face, "Damn it Jackson" she breathed and gave the man a quick once over, "Are you at least alright?" she asked in a louder volume. "Yeah~ I'm good...anyone ever tell you that you can really kick the shit out of somebody if you wanted to? Cause you can, I'm pretty sure you would have cracked a couple ribs if you would have had shoes on." he pointed out.

She smirked in satisfactory, "No, but that's good to know. Now seriously Jackson, what are you doing here?" she questioned urgently. Jackson may not have been her uncle but he was indeed related to her on her father's side of the family, he was a cousin of hers...a very, very, very distant one, but a cousin nonetheless. "What? A man can't visit family anymore these days?" he asked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Jackson!" Élise snapped with a harsh glare. She remembered the last time she brought someone into the base without Optimus's okay and it wasn't fun having the gentle giant angry with her. Even if this situation was different, she still didn't want to risk getting in trouble with the big guy again. "Okay, okay. Calm down!" he said raising his hands in surrender, "Your mom and dad send their regards, they send Epps their regards too." he began and began digging in the back pocket of his pants.

"But they also wanted me to give you something, since they couldn't get a hold of Warper for some reason." he said confusingly and brought out a small rectangular box. Élise quirked an eye brow and opened the box, only to see it had a folded up piece of paper in it and a small video chip accompanied it.

"You know what's on this?" she asked nodding towards the small video chip but he shook his head no. "No, no one tells me anything anymore. All I was told, was to bring this to you and to get going on my next assignment ASAP. You can try looking on that piece of paper though, maybe it'll tell you something but right now I'm going to go. Your mom and dad have me on a tight schedule, I have another four stops to make before the week is over." he explained and as if on que, his front pocket began buzzing.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, staring at the screen for about ten seconds before putting it back in its' safe place. "I have to go, need to be in Canada by night time tomorrow and I still have a few side stops to make." he said and pulled his cousin in for a quick hug before shifting back into her "uncle Gino". "I'll see you later... Cipher" he said with a smirk and turned around, speed walking down the hall.

A small smile slipped onto her lips, "Good bye, Morph!" she called back. Once the man was out of sight, she looked down at the parcel and sighed, "What could you guys possibly want?" she wondered quietly.

0.o.0.o.0.o.0

Élise sighed tiredly, that letter and the contents of the video chip had stressed her out to no end. **"_There is an enemy out there, hiding behind our own government! If they will not deal with them then we must, but you're going to need the technology to do it. Now, this is just a prototype, but with this little device here, you'll be able to track mutants within a ten mile radius. And over some time, who's to say that this little guy couldn't easily be upgraded to where it can sense a mutant in a fifty mile radius? Not only will your safety from these...characters, be more secured but if you call and reveal the location of the mutant detection site, a reward will be given out for contributing to our cause. Tropical vacations to a cash reward up to $10,000 depending on what mutant is spotted and captured. It's your choice. Just like how they have a choice, I suppose. Continue to hide and make it worse for themselves or come out and give themselves up willingly."_**

Fan-freaking-tastic. A tracking device, the bastards made a tracking device to pick up mutant signatures within a ten mile radius. Soon to be able to cover a fifty mile radius in a matter of time. Élise scoffed to herself as she thought more and more about the recruiting of everyday people was not helping mutant cases either. Of course they'd offer a reward for selling them out, who wouldn't with the rewards they were offering? It'd be child's play to find a mutant with that damnable device. A lot of mutant lived in the cities and with that device put out in the public, mutants would be discovered left and right.

_It's not safe for us anymore, it's getting more dangerous everyday. And that tracking device out in the public isn't helping us in the least bit. We don't have the technology needed to fight back with either. We can try asking the government for money but I doubt they'll help, especially when they already have laws put in place for our kind. Maybe if I can get a hold of Techno, things could be better but right now he's M.I.A. No one knows where he is or knows where to even begin looking for him. Do what you will, sweetheart but stay safe and preferably stay where you are. I'd say you're one of the few mutants that are relatively safe where you are at the moment._

_However when the time comes, I may need you. If we can not find Techno then I'm going to need you and a few other specialized stealth mutants to sneak into the hunters technology HQ and snatch one of their devices away, along with what ever other technology they have holed up in there. We'll just have to study their technology to try and create our own technology that protects us from theirs._

_But, that's only if we can't find Techno. Right now, I have some telepaths and tracking mutants trying to find the guy. So for now, stay where you are and continue doing what you were doing before you found out about any of this. Make a few calls to your friends if you will, but be careful about it. No doubt the lines will be tapped in suspected areas of where mutants are hiding._

_Love, _

_Dad._

Oh Techno, you sure do pick a perfect time to go M.I.A don't you? Techno or Eugene if you took a look at his birth certificate, was a cute little nerdy guy. He had the ability to absorb and create artificial light, manipulating it to create holograms with a solid form. Although in theory he can create anything he wants, but he mainly recreates what he sees in video games.

But on a more important note, he was a natural genius. Eugene was enrolled in boarding school at six, where he soon started experimenting with erector sets. Then he went on to be his high school valedictorian. He joined an undergraduate program at MIT at the age of 15, where he majored in physics and electrical engineering. Getting his double majors in physics and electrical engineering was easy for him, and he received Master's degrees in both.

If anyone was truly going to help the mutants, it would be Techno and that engineering brain of his. He had the knowledge to make the very technology that would help save them as a race. She broke away from her musings by a knock on her door, "Yeah?" Élise called out.

"The guys who left to fight are back!" an unfamiliar voice called through the door before she heard the sound of boots walking away with out waiting for a response. Élise sighed and ran a hand over her face, "Of course they are" she mumbled tiredly but got up nonetheless. Putting on a fake mask, Élise smiled brightly and rushed out of her room to greet her friends.

0.o.0.o.0.

_It's not safe anymore...the government won't help... Techno's missing...we need Techno..._

"Élise, are you okay?" Epps asked his oddly silent niece. Élise looked up in mild surprise "Hm?" she asked a bit lost. "You're rather quiet, you okay?" he repeated concerningly. She had been oddly silent, even when greeting everyone who had returned from the fighting. She looked worn out, stressed.

_This little device may be a prototype but it will be able to detect a mutant within a ten mile radius...call and report the location of where your device went off... rewards of tropical vacations to $10,000 depending of the capture of the mutant...It is their choice, continue to hide and make it worse for themselves or give up willingly. _

She flashed an award winning smile to her uncle and continued the patch job she was doing on his leg, "I'm doing just fine." she lied.

**O.o.O.o.O**

**A/N: **Hey! Thanks for all the reads and reviews, I appreciate it! Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes you may have found.


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